


I Had A Dream, Molly

by siriuslyhiddenlawyer



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 50 Berkeley square, Established Sherlolly, F/M, Halloween at 221B - A Sherlolly Celebration, Molly Hooper - Freeform, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Post-The Final Problem, Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlolly - Freeform, Sherlolly supernatural, Supernatural - Freeform, established Sherlock and Molly, sherlolly feels, sherlolly fluff, sherlolly smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-07 01:00:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 25,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16398419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslyhiddenlawyer/pseuds/siriuslyhiddenlawyer
Summary: Sherlock and Molly, in a rough patch in their relationship, are investigating a mysterious death at infamous 50 Berkeley Square in London, when a thunderstorm rocks the house, and Molly walks away with new abilities.





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> The rating is likely to change to explicit, we'll see!  
> Excuse hello  
> Let me know what you think and enjoy!

When the lightning bolt hit, Sherlock and Molly were bent over a mangled corpse on the ground of the old house in Mayfair, 50 Berkeley Square to be precise. She was squinting over something she’d seen on the man’s throat while Sherlock squinted down, focusing on the clothes, using his magnifying glass as he occasionally muttered to himself. 

They'd had a bit of a fight earlier that day, a shouting match in Baker Street that had sent Mrs. Hudson running towards them, worried about what the neighbors would think about the raised voices. “What will the neighbors think,” she’d hissed but Sherlock and Molly had been staring at each other, gulping air, red faced, hearts broken.

It had been an argument that had been brewing for nearly eight months, an argument that should have occurred long before it had gotten to its boiling point. But Molly was even more stubborn than Sherlock, and she’d vowed she would make him fix it this time. 

Why should she have to be the one super gluing their relationship back together, always? 

Why did she always have to be the levelheaded adult? 

He’d proven that he was emotionally mature now, no longer stunted, he was able to understand and articulate his feelings after Sherrinford, and their deepening, unnamed relationship since the events of Sherrinford had further helped the consulting detective to deal with his feelings and emotions. 

But something had snapped eight months ago and their relationship had stalled. Sherlock had gone from being unable to keep his hands off of Molly, practically moving in with her, spending every night in her bed, every free moment buried inside her warmth, to...nothing.

He hadn’t touched her for eight months now, nothing beyond a perfunctory kiss in way of greeting when he breezed into the lab or decided he was bored of Baker Street and wanted to take refuge in her Clapham flat.

For eight months, she sizzled, vibrated for him. Not for sex, just for his touch. She simply wanted to feel her lover’s skin, his breath, his love. She missed the simple ability to hug and hold Sherlock, to rest her head against his chest after a long day, feel his broad palm on the back of her neck as he massaged the tense muscles there, his voice a soft vibration beneath her ear as he talked to her. She could live without the sex, but she craved the intimacy.

She was exhausted though, tired of being the relationship Ms. Fix-It. Molly had become convinced, having enough lonely, sleepless nights to think about it, that he’d become so comfortable with the thought of Molly fixing whatever was broken between them, that he didn’t need to worry about it. He was complacent. 

But she was tired. 

So that morning, when he’d sent her a demanding text to come to Baker Street immediately, to drop everything because this was beyond urgent, her heart had foolishly fluttered as she’d stood in her towel, dripping water from her shower. She remembered the texts like that he’d sent on previous occasions, demanding her presence, and when she’d arrived, he’d kiss her like his life depended on it, stealing her breath into his lungs, picking her up to carry her to his bedroom where he would spend hours making her scream his name. 

When she’d arrived at Baker Street, her hair still wet, she’d nearly slapped him when he barely greeted her. “What do you know about 50 Berkeley Square?”

“What?” she’d blinked at him, scrambling, “the-the-the....” she’d stopped, hating when he made her stutter and taken a deep breath, “the alleged haunted house in Mayfair?”

“Oh good, you at least know it’s haunted,” he hadn’t even looked at her, still wearing his royal blue housecoat over his trousers and snow-white shirt, digging through the files on the table.

She clenched her jaw, “there’s several hauntings apparently, the original version attributing it to a young woman that killed herself, a young man that was locked in the attic until he eventually mad and died. The most famous story is that of two sailors who broke into the abandoned house, one of them died and the other fled.”

“Correct,” he still didn’t look at her, “they say the ghost appears in either a brown or white mist and drives those who see it to madness. The house hasn’t been occupied for decades,” he finally looked at her over his shoulder but he didn’t really see her, “it was bought eight months ago by a curator, a descendant of the original owner of the house. The restoration work finished three nights ago, and the new owners moved in last night,” the glint in his eyes told her this was what he’d been waiting to get to, the part of the story he relished, “he was found dead this morning, with a gun in his hand, bullet holes in the wall opposite him. Was he murdered or scared to death by a demonic entity?”

She rubbed her forehead, her patience growing thin, “my money’s on demonic entity,” she’d growled, wanting to rile him up. 

“Oh Molly,” she’d  _heard_  him rolling his eyes as he turned his back on her again, “surely you don’t believe that nonsense about demons and ghosts and goblins!”

“And what if I do?” she’d challenged him, “what if I believe that there’s more to this world than meets the eye?”

“Ghosts and demons and goblins were invented by feeble-minded humans who didn’t have the capacity to understand nature, or were incapable of believing that human beings themselves have the capacity to do monstrous things. Therefore, by inventing demons and ghosts, they could farm out the responsibility to some senseless supernatural entity to explain perfectly normal events,” he stopped for breath, “If you can’t see it or touch it, it doesn’t exist.”

She'd swallowed, the words finally bubbling up, “so any love or affection you’ve ever had for me, that doesn’t exist?”

Sherlock finally faced her, standing to his full height as he frowned at her, finally looking at her instead of through her, “what are you talking about?”

And it hadn’t been long after that their voices had gotten so loud that Mrs. Hudson had had to intervene. They’d sat in the taxi in tense silence, hadn’t spoken a word as she’d walked ahead of him into the old house. 

She’d snapped on her gloves, focusing all her energy on trying to find an explanation for the owner’s death as Greg hovered above her and Sherlock, looking rather nervous when she’d started seeing things out of the corner of her eyes, heard breaths in her ear, chills down her spine that she waved away. At one point, she’d looked up to talk to Lestrade and could have sworn she saw a woman wearing white standing behind him, watching her. But she’d blinked and the figure had disappeared. 

Nerves, she’d sworn to herself, that’s all. The combination of the fight with Sherlock, and the stories of the house were spooking her, making her think she saw and felt things. Like the fingers that had just dragged across the back of her neck.

Molly and Greg had jumped out of their shoes when thunder had begun to rumble, ricocheting and shaking the old house off its foundation. Her heart had been thundering, so frightened that she’d reached out a hand to grip Sherlock’s thigh where he knelt next to her. He’d looked at her with those pale, color changing eyes, “it’s alright,” he’d murmured. 

She'd lost herself in his eyes, in the warmth she saw flickering there, warming his gaze. He cared about her, she could see that so clearly as her hand rested on his thigh, as her heartbeat finally settled in her chest after the fright of the thunder. Then why didn’t he touch her anymore? Why did he distance himself?

That’s when the lightning bolt had inexplicably struck the house, sending a jolt through her, the fine hairs on her body standing up as she felt the electricity travel through the floor of the old house and into her. 


	2. Night 1

Molly insisted on not going to the hospital after the lightning incident. She wanted to go home, to be left alone to rest, and that was that.

Greg had looked horrified, pale and concerned as he danced from one foot to the other, hovering over her. Sherlock had looked concerned too, not bothering to hide it as she lay on her back on the floor, her head in his lap, his fingertips cool against her heated skin as he checked her pulse. “You’re alright,” he told her, his voice soft.

“We should take you to hospital,” Greg repeated for the millionth time.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she breathed, sitting up, her body feeling overly sensitive and she could feel the concern radiating off of Sherlock, his hand between her shoulders as if he was afraid she would collapse again.

“I’m pretty sure you’re _not_ fine! You’re as pale as a ghost!” Greg nearly shouted.

“Your choice of words are vastly inappropriate,” she shook her head, “I just need to go home and lay down, that’s all.” Her bravery would’ve been more respectful if she’d been able to stand without Sherlock helping her keep her balance by grabbing her arms to steady her, but such was life, and she hated that she leaned on him for those brief few heartbeats. God, he was so worried about her, so scared when she’d collapsed in front of him on the floor, stiff and looking blankly at the ceiling. She’d been unconscious for nearly five minutes. Molly frowned up at Sherlock, “really?”

“Really what?” he asked, that confused pucker kissing him between his brows.

“I was unconscious for five minutes?” she asked, sure that she had heard him say it out loud.

“About,” he murmured as she pushed herself away, finally finding her balance to stand by herself, “maybe Lestrade is right, we should get you to a hospital.”

She focused all her energy on taking one step then another on legs that were refusing to accept her weight, that felt more like spaghetti than muscles and fiber. But she managed to take a few unsteady steps without falling, until she finally found her equilibrium, “I’m fine,” she said over her shoulder, using the wall to steady herself as she walked out of the room and into the hall, taking deep breaths.

            Molly kept thinking she could hear whispers flittering through the air, signs of life that weren’t quite there, and Sherlock’s voice loudest above them all. His voice was distinct, so clear she had to stop for a few moments, squeezing her eyes shut as he whispered in her ear, _my love, my love, my beautiful love._ She looked behind her, just to make sure the hallway was as empty as she thought. There was no one there, no signs of Greg or Sherlock, still the with the corpse probably.         

            She slowly made her way downstairs, the whispers growing thinner except for Sherlock’s constant murmurs, terms of endearment she’d never heard him utter. Dismissing everything, she finally went outside, the chilly air welcoming on her heated skin. The police and forensics experts that were milling about, waiting for the all clear to go back in from Greg, looking at her curiously but she didn’t say anything, didn’t look at them. Molly leaned against one of the cars, rubbing the back of her neck.           

            The strangest sensation was spreading through her. She was hot, much too hot, as if she were sitting in an enclosed space with a fire that was burning too hot. Except for strange lines that were ice cold, radiating down from the back of her neck down her back in straight lines. It was most likely the spread of the lightning strike, she swore to herself, thinking she should probably google what happened to someone’s body after they were struck by lightning. She cursed vehemently when she pulled her phone out, the damned thing smoking, the screen having exploded in her pocket.

            Sherlock’s voice grew louder in her ears and she looked up to see that he was strolling towards her, the forensics team rushing the house when he was outside. He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets, the wind lifting his curls as he made his way through the crowd, everyone clearing a wide path for him. “What is it?” he demanded.  

            She held her phone out for him to see, “looks like I need a new one,” she laughed softly, “are _you_ alright? You were right next to me.”

            “You acted as some sort of conductor I think, I didn’t get a jolt at all,” he flexed his long fingers, “these old houses have copper wiring. Although it’s not rare, it’s not unheard of either. There’s probably a bit of exposed copper on the roof that leads down into the floor of the house and you got the brunt of it,” his smile was smile, lifting the corner of his mouth, “Molly Hooper, conductor of lightning.”

            Molly smiled, “I should change my business cards.”

            “I realize I sound like a broken record” _my Molly_ “but are you alright? Maybe we should take you in to see a doctor, you look pale” _darling_.

            She blinked up at him, frowning slightly as she tried to think why he was saying such sweet, lovely things, “honestly, I’m alright. I just think I need to get some rest. It’s been a long day.”

            Sherlock’s breath exploded from his lungs, “yeah,” he cleared his throat, “I’m sure I didn’t help.”

            “Not at all,” she smiled at him, “can you take me home now, please?”

            He had a magic touch when it came to find taxi’s in the middle of the quietest streets in London, and soon they were riding quietly back to her apartment. She felt exhausted as she sank into the seat in the bank, watching the rain that started as suddenly as it stopped earlier. Molly couldn’t see Sherlock but she definitely felt his presence next to her, the familiarity of his body seemed to be calling for her, the reminder of all they’d shared ingrained in their cells, in their very molecules. Sometimes she thought she could feel him in her skin, tampering with her very DNA, marking her as his forever.

            “I can come up if you’d like,” he offered quietly when they got to her flat.

            Hand resting on the door handle, she stopped for a few moments, considering his offer. There was no promise of intimacy, no promise of a resolution to whatever problem they were having, but the prospect of sleeping alone…she felt prickly, unsettled, paranoid with her palm constantly rubbing her arms as if trying to push the excess electricity out of her body. She kept thinking she’d go into some sort of fit, some kind of cardiac arrest or…something equally ludicrous.

            “Uhm,” she cleared her throat, “that would—yeah, I’d rather not…be alone.”

            Gone were the days he’d rush her up to her front door, stealing the keys from her palm to open the door himself because she was being too slow for him, the days when he’d push open the door and carry her inside, his mouth and hands hungry, tearing at her clothes, eager to touch her, to spread her out beneath him and bury himself so deep inside her that neither knew where one began and the other ended.

            But now…the awkwardness that chased them to the door made her forget the chill in her soul, replaced now by a hollow ache. She smiled softly when he took the keys from her trembling fingers, his voice clear as day when his fingertips brushed against hers, _my love_.

            She looked up at him in shock, wondering what had driven him to call her such things but he was frowning at the door, lifting a brow at her inquisitively as he pushed the door open, “what?” he demanded rather irritably.

            Convinced she was losing her mind, she walked inside the dark flat, flipping on lights as she went. But she was exhausted, her body humming with something uncomfortable, some unsettled sensation she couldn’t name, that kissed her skin and raised the small hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. “I think I’m going to go to bed,” she murmured, avoiding his gaze as he shrugged out of his great coat then his jacket, throwing them on the sofa like he always did, never bother with the coat rack behind him. “The guest room is ready if you’d like,” she offered, “there are blankets and extra pillows in the closet.” Because what were the chances that he would want to join her in bed, sleep beside her, find the sense of intimacy they’d lost these past months.

            She wasn’t even sure they were in a relationship any more, an unspoken barrier shielding them from each other now. Molly waved the thoughts away now, thinking it was too late for that rubbish. “I’ll be fine on the sofa,” he told her.     

            Dying for a bath, she decided against going near large volumes of water for the time being, even hesitant about turning on the faucet to brush her teeth. Using the minimal amount she could manage, she got through her nightly routine and was soon wearing her pajamas, crawling beneath her heavy blankets and staring at the pitch black sky outside. The moon was hidden behind clouds tonight, the solitary moon, she thought.

            Sleep evaded her and she wished she could simply losing consciousness, could just close her eyes and disappear from the world for the next eight hours, free of her cares and concerns. But her eyes kept popping open, convinced there was someone else in the room with her, someone watching her from the foot of her bed.

            Eventually though she did fall asleep, the nightmares or whatever they were dissipating, receding and allowing her to lose herself in a few hours of slumber. She woke up at one point, groggy and still asleep, smilingly sleepily when she’d realized Sherlock was on the bed next to her, fast asleep on his back, her hand curled against his chest where he held it tightly with his own hand.

_Molly dreamt she was lost in some vast palace, empty with endless rows of doors that were closed, doors that gave her the impression that there were massive hidden mazes of rooms behind those doors. Occasionally she would hear talking as she walked towards the end of the hallway, indistinct voices save for one…_

_Sherlock’s of course._

_She pushed open the door where his voice was the loudest, and she peaked around the door, thinking she couldn’t possibly be accused of eavesdropping in a dream, there was no moral culpability._

_Sherlock was standing in the middle of a room filled with books and papers and maps with strings that connected to each other in a labyrinth. He was wearing what he’d had on earlier, black trousers and his pristine white shirt, sleeves rolled up as he stood thoughtfully in front of the map, muttering to himself like a madman, running his hands in a frustrated gesture through his curls, pulling on the ends._

_There was a hidden door on the other side of the door that flew wide open and Molly was a little more than shocked when she saw another version of herself walk in. She frowned at this new Molly, wearing her favorite stripped, colorful jumper over a black and white blouse, hair pulled back in a slick ponytail with baggy brown trousers. This Molly’s lips were more pink too, as if she was waring a touch of lipstick as she carried a white mug between her palms, walking towards Sherlock._

_“Any progress, darling?” she asked Sherlock, blowing on the hot liquid that steamed from the mug._

_Sherlock chewed his lip, the way he always did when he was deep in thought, “it must be staring me in the face,” he growled._

_The other Molly took a sip from the mug, making a humming sound of approval before she handed it to Sherlock, “I made your favorite, white hot chocolate spiced with cardamom and orange,” she gave him the mug, wrapping her arms around his neck after he’d taken a sip, holding the mug to the side to receive his hug, “you’re the most brilliant man I know Sherlock Holmes, the smartest, the wisest, if anyone can figure this out, it’s you.”_

_She’d never seen Sherlock look so insecure, so desperate for approval, for a compliment. In the real world, he loved receiving the compliments but never showed that he craved them but here, hidden in her dreams, she saw how much he wanted her approval, his expression naked in its honesty, “do you really believe that?” he asked._

_“Yes, I do,” the Molly that was holding him said in a strong, sure voice, “with all my heart and soul Sherlock. I know you are a good, decent man. A man worthy of love, a many worthy of affection.”_

_“What if I’m not the man you think I am?”_

_The Molly in his arms smiled, “it doesn’t matter,” she pressed her lips to his, “all that matters is what I believe you to be, and you’ll become that man for me darling, you already are. My man, my Sherlock.”_

_It was a jump that Molly Hooper realized this wasn’t her dream._


	3. Day 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, forgive me my typos and liberties. And thank you for reading!
> 
> Since it's 13 days of Halloween, and I started late, the plan is to post multiple chapters until I'm all caught up! 
> 
> enjoy!

Sherlock awoke with a start.

It was normal for consciousness to hit him like a ton of bricks, as the nonsensical saying went (after all, wouldn’t you die if a ton of bricks landed on you?). Having essentially lived with Molly for over a year, he had come to realize that “normal” people woke up slowly, had a sense of consciousness before they opened their eyes that made them press themselves into the pillow, bargaining with time for just five more minutes of blissful sleep before they had to face the day. He’d watched Molly often enough, had memorized the way she would stretch and rub her eyes, sometimes grumbling as she peaked at the alarm clock on her nightstand, usually smiling as she emerged from sleep, greeting him with a husky voice and a soft kiss. 

He'd been missing those early moments, not that he’d ever admit it to anyone, not even to himself at times. 

But the bricks fell this morning not as a normal way of waking him but it was out of sheer terror and confusion. His dream had been perfectly lovely and normal, he couldn’t quite remember it but he remembered the warmth, the sensation of contentment and happiness that he must have been dreaming, but there was something...wrong.

Molly was awake already, looking concerned, sitting up in bed with her legs tucked against her chest, chewing her lip thoughtfully. When she realized he was awake too, she scrambled to hide whatever she was feeling from him, “good morning,” she murmured, avoiding his gaze. 

“Everything alright, Molly?” he frowned at her.

“Perfectly,” she answered, unfurling herself and sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to him. 

That’s when he saw it. Right beneath her hairline and disappearing in a series of jagged, parallel lines down her tank-top. “Christ,” he sat up, “Molly don’t move,” he told her, kneeling behind her on the bed. He brushed her to the side, pulling down the neck of her shirt, his fingertips tracing the lines on her back that looked like lightning, branching out from the main bolt and shattering and branching out across her back and shoulders. 

“What? What is it?” she looked at him over her shoulder with wild eyes.

He didn’t answer, too shocked by what he saw as he wordlessly lifted the shirt up and off of her, tossing it on the floor. A part of him sighed in relief and want at the sight her sitting naked on the bed, aching to touch her milky white breasts, to press his head there and  _oh Molly_. She shivered then, glancing at him before quickly averting her gaze again, crossing her arms across her shoulders as she sighed. Sherlock forced his attention back to her back, seeing that the ends of the lightning seemed to reach down the length of her back, stopping above her hips. 

“It doesn’t hurt?” he asked her softly, touching his fingers to her back, over the shockingly red skin that created the disturbingly beautiful artwork on her back, as if she had been deliberately tattooed to carry lightning.

She shook her head quietly, her breathing changing and he knew she was fighting hard not to cry.

He'd been avoiding this, avoiding touching her, feeling her but how could he not? So he pulled her back against his chest, wrapping his arms around her from behind as he kissed her temple, “perfectly natural for Lichtenberg figures to appear on the skin of someone struck by electricity,” he murmured, “it was an extremely rare thing to happen but it did happen.”

Molly’s shaking hand gripped his forearm, “Sherlock,” her voice sounded choked, “if the lightning was so powerful that it left marks on me, I should have sustained burns, I should have gone into cardiac arrests. I—I don’t feel anything, none of the known side effects of being struck by lightning!”

“Would you rather be in pain?” he frowned, unable to keep himself from kissing her temple, having missed her skin, her warmth, this intimacy between them, this intimacy with another human being, with his...love.

Molly drew in a shocked breath, pressing her head back against his chest, “I’ve missed you to you know, this hasn’t been easy for me, to stay away from you.”

Sherlock frowned down at her, “what?” 

Her brown eyes were confused, “didn’t you just--” she shook her head, “never mind. Never mind...” distracted, she stood up, grabbing her shirt from the floor and holding it against her breasts as she moved to the bathroom that was attached to her room. 

He couldn’t not follow her, couldn’t in good conscience leave her with that terrified, troubled expression without making sure she was alright.  _I’ve missed you too._

 _“_ Sherlock,” her voice was shaky, “can you—can you not come in here, please?” she raised her voice as he heard the shower turn on, “I just need you to not...not be near me right now?”

It would have been less painful if she’d taken a dagger and sank it into his chest, if she’d taken out his heart and replaced it with a block of ice, “yeah, I'm sorry. I’ll get out of your hair--”

“No!” she walked out, tears streaming down her cheeks, looking so distressed, “no, don’t--don’t leave if you don’t want to. I don’t-- I don’t want you to leave-- I'd rather you stay actually, unless you’re uncomfortable and need to leave if you’re not...comfortable...here...with me--” she stopped herself, wiping away her tears, “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t know what to say. All that he knew, all that he had learned over the years, every bit of information he had stored, that made him a genius, that had earned him his international reputation, that he had relied on his entire life, didn’t prepare him for this, didn’t help him understand what she needed in that moment. He was in pain, in physical pain, from his inability to satisfy her emotional needs, let alone her physical ones. He was starving for her but he’d failed her, and continued to fail her. “Don’t be sorry,” he managed to say, wringing his hands.

Her expression softened, “you could make me some coffee?” she suggested, “I’ll be down in a moment. I...I want you here, with me. I always want you,” her smile was sad, “I’m just never sure when you want me.”

“Molly--”

But she cut him off, “coffee. Please,” and closed the bathroom door.

He wanted to reach for her, to touch her, hold her in his arms and tell her everything was okay, wanted to kiss her until all the darkness disappeared from her eyes, until she looked at him the way she always used to. Sherlock even took a step towards the door, but he ended up pressing his forehead to the door instead of turning the nob and going in, ended up wishing he was a stronger man as he listened to her moving around inside. 

Was there a book he could read? Experiments he could conduct? Experts he could contact? Any resources of Mycroft’s he could commandeer to help him understand how to be  _enough_. 

The coffee was brewing and he was sitting on the stool at her counter, staring at the empty space in front of him. And not for the first time, he was grateful she’d decided to move after the events of Sherringford. The weeks and months following the nightmare that had been Sherrinford, when he had found solace only in Molly’s simple presence, she’d caught him staring with desperation at the spot in her kitchen where he had watched her stand, where she had demanded he tell her he loved her first. He'd been haunted by the spot, and had known she no longer felt comfortable in her flat. It had been with joy and gusto that he’d helped her find a new flat, that he’d voluntarily helped her pack and move, claiming he was excited because she'd be closer to Baker Street.

But Molly...Molly knew he was as relieved as she was to get out of there, to start fresh, a new beginning for them both. Those first few days and weeks, he’d practically moved in with her, crippled, unable to move without her encouragement, unable to breath, unable to sleep unless he knew she was next to him, ready to hold him, ready to help him understand his thoughts, ready to help him mourn for all that he’d lost. She had stroked his hair countless times, her body curled around his from behind, shielding him from the world as she’d told him about depression, about trauma, about all the things that happened to a person when the mind had been put under tremendous stress.

He remembered the night he’d finally found his bravery, when he’d finally looked at her and asked how she knew. Sherlock would forever remember her light touch, the way she’d smiled at him, her brown eyes warm, patient, “I have depression,” she murmured, “since my father died, and in order to overcome it, I had to understand it so I've done a lot of research on depression and trauma.”

Idiotic, blind, he’d frowned at her, “trauma?”

But her smile had been even more patient, even though she should’ve done something to make him understand how ignorant he was for not understanding, “a parent’s death is traumatic,” she’d told him, “and then everything that happened with Jim, and then you disappearing for two years and--”

“Mary,” he’d finished for her.

Molly gave him everything. She gave him love, hope, affection, serenity. She gave him a home, a bed, a warm kitchen, laughter.  _Warmth_. She gave him her body, her smiles, her sighs. She gave him a purpose, passion. 

And what did he give her?

It was the damndest thing to start becoming sentient at the age of 36. Because he finally started to understand how much he took from the people around him, how much he demanded of them and never returned what he was given. He only ever took, and with Molly, it had become a habit to take from her and never repay her, never thank her for all that she gifted him. Sherlock had convinced himself at some point that it was her fault for letting him get away with it for so long, until he could no longer let himself... _take_.

He shut down in the worst possible way and hadn’t found his way back, and Molly had had enough.

Molly’s fingers sinking into his hair made him sigh in comfort, slipping into a pool of warmth but she let her hand fall far too soon as she walked to the kitchen, wearing a spaghetti-strap shirt and pajama bottoms, her hair wet and hanging around her shoulders, “let it be,” she murmured, “let it be.”


	4. Day 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy! xx  
> Anyone catch The Empty Hearse Easter egg?

 

As far as Molly could tell, there were two possibilities.

She was either losing her mind, or she could...hear? Feel?... Sherlock’s thoughts.

Pacing the lab like a caged animal, she knew she wasn’t going to get any work done but there was no point in going home either. Hands in her pockets, she chewed her lip as she paced, as she tried to find a  rational explanation for what was happening to her.

Yesterday had been the strangest day of her life. It would have been strange if she’d simply gotten struck by lightning hard enough for it to leave her marked but not fry her, but to have the other...weird things happening, left Molly on edge.

She was sure she’d been in his dream, as strange as it was to even think such a thought. She was also sure she could hear his thoughts too, not all of them she thought, just the ones that were connected to her somehow. They were whispers in her ears, as if they were in a room together and he was on the other side, whispering secrets to her, but when he touched her his voice was as clear as day. Molly had noticed several times the day before that she heard his voice while he stayed perfectly silent, looking startled when she made the mistake of replying to whatever she’d heard.

The pain she’d felt when he’d been outside the bathroom door, the marrow deep inadequacy that haunted him left her breathless. Never in a million years could she have imagined such insecurity from Sherlock, such a sense of blank inadequacy and guilt over something he had no control over. Something within had told her he was on the other side of the door, something within whispered that his hand was on the doorknob, that he had the other palm resting against the door with his forehead just _there_.

But he hadn’t come in like she’d hoped, that terrifying insecurity keeping him on the other side. And her own insecurity, her own alarm at this new madness had kept her away from him, but her love for the man had walked her to the door, imitating his pose so that only the door separated them.

 And God, when she’d gone down to the kitchen, he’d been in so much pain she nearly doubled over with it, with all the he felt, all the guilt he carried with him...it was a wonder he could walk.

Logically, it was a possibility that the lightning had affected her in some way. She’d been reading all the medical journals and articles she could find on people who were struck by lightning. Symptoms often included cardiac arrest, inexplicable mood swings, personality changes, severe headaches, memory loss, total amnesia. The reason was that the electrical charge was usually so high, it reset certain defaults in the human body. So how farfetched was it to think that the ability to read minds wasn’t a new, previously undiscovered side effect.

After all, the odds of being struck by lightning were extremely rare, the odds of surviving a lightning strike even lower than that.

What if...

Mike Stamford threw open her door, startling her out of her thoughts, “sorry!” he said immediately, “should’ve known you’d be jumpy. I heard through the grapevine what happened, are you sure you should be at work?”

Molly found a smile for Mike, nodding, “honestly, I'm fine,” she told him, “just a bit distracted.”

“Maybe you should go home? Get some rest?” he suggested, his kind face full of concern, “it’s not an everyday thing to get struck by lightning and walk away.”

“Maybe,” she agreed.

Within the hour, she was standing outside having briefed her colleagues on what’d she’d been working on. She stood on the sidewalk, the buzz of traffic a constant noise around her as her fingers hovered over her brand-new phone, trying to decide whether or not she should text him. But he saved her from the indecision by calling her, making her frown slightly because Sherlock Holmes _never_ called. “I heard you’re going home early, what’s wrong? Are you in pain?” he said by way of greeting.

She smiled despite herself, “not in pain,” she told him, “just needing to go home. Where—where are you?”

“Baker street, why?” he demanded.

Molly frowned in concentration, trying to see if she could hear him now, over the phone. When she couldn’t, she questioned her sanity even more for thinking she could read minds, “can you—can you come stay with me? Sherlock I—I--” she squeezed her eyes shut, “I need you.”

He was already waiting for her by the time she got to her flat, standing perfectly erect in her living room, his eyes burning with concern, his voice shouting in her mind as he seemed to take inventory of her. Molly froze in the entry way, listening to him, to her madness, whatever it was. He saw that she was wearing his least favorite beige pants that made her look shapeless, the light blue top, he saw the dark circles beneath her eyes, how pale she was, her frizzy ponytail. In short, she looked as terrible as she thought she looked.

But despite that...he thought she was beautiful.

“Hi,” she was breathless as she dropped her bag to the floor.

“Hi,” he took the room in four long strides, climbing over her armchair to stand before her, “what’s wrong?”

She shook her head again, “it would be a lot better to be me if you stop asking me that.”

“I can’t help it,” he told her, cupping her face in his big hands.

She squeezed her eyes shut and listened, needing to know the extent of her madness. She heard him, he was calm and peaceful today, not as panicked as he’d been the day before, not as frantic. But the darkness in his thoughts lingered, and she listened to how much he hated himself for the last eight months, listened to him bombard himself for letting the distance grow between them. Felt his helplessness, because he wanted to fix this but he didn’t know how, where to start.

“Sherlock,” she murmured, bringing her palms to rest on his chest, wanting to give him some sort of hint, some glimpse of what he could do to fix the canyon between them, “why are you here?”

“Because you asked me,” he frowned at her.

Chuckling she nodded, “that was an idiotic question,” she admitted, “I mean, don’t you have anything better to do? What about the Berkeley Square?”

“Molly, you called and asked me to come to you,” he sounded so bored, that familiar slightly annoyed tone that he’d always used to her, his words clipped and yet...if she was actually hearing his thoughts, he was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to comfort her the way she wanted him to, the way she would need him to. “So here I am,” he told her.

“Here you are,” she whispered, “I just want to be with you Sherlock,” she admitted, “I don’t want anything else, just for you to be here with me, breathing in the same room.”

His mouth trembled, his thoughts so loud in her mind, his desperation to kiss her so obvious, consuming him, but instead he nodded, licking his lips, “easy enough to do.”

Molly pressed her forehead to his, needing to touch him, wanting to kiss him but she realized a few things then. Her father had always taught her the old proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”  If she simply kissed him, made love to him the way they both wanted, if she erased the past eight months without an explanation, the inadequacy he felt would never leave him.

She sank her fingers into his hair as she held him, his thoughts whispering across her skin. _My Molly. My beautiful Molly. My loveliest. I want to be enough._

Words alone were never enough for Sherlock. If she spent the rest of her life telling him that he was her everything, that he was everything she would need, he wouldn’t believe her.

But if she wasn’t going mad, and she actually _had_ started hearing his thoughts...well then, might as well use it for some good. So she would use her love, use all that she knew about him, and help him understand, help him understand that he was enough because he was… _Sherlock_.


	5. Night 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive the inevitable typos and spelling/grammatical mistakes and enjoy!

“What are you thinking?” she murmured as they lay against each other in the dark, surrounded by the silence of her apartment, the storm raging outside muffled. She felt like they were in a cocoon, in complete isolation, insulated from the world outside. And that’s what she’d wanted for them for that night, no distractions just...them.

Of course, she knew what he was thinking about, what he was feeling. Laying against him, every inch of her touching him, she could read him so clearly, as if he was talking directly in her ear. And maybe she should’ve been more startled by the fact that she was going made, maybe she should’ve been reacting more to the realization that she was definitely hearing his thoughts or definitely losing her mind. But she was calm somehow, blindly accepting what was happening to her. 

The way she saw it, if she was going mad then what was the use of fighting it? It would only make the descent harder and more difficult on everyone. By accepting the madness and sliding down the rabbit hole, she could at least have some fun, lose herself in the fantasy for a little bit. 

If she wasn’t going mad, if the lightning strike had done something to her brain’s wiring, then she was going to help Sherlock find his way to her. She was going to help him see himself through her eyes, the way she was now seeing herself through him. 

And it was such a shock too, to see herself from his perspective, to finally understand why he loved her, why he was attracted to her.

She'd never had the highest self-esteem when it came to her looks, had always known she was more the intellectual type than a model type, a pretty girl. She'd grown to not care what she looked like, to look back at her reflection in the mirror, at the insignificantly brown eyes and boring brown hair and fair complexion with acceptance and resolve. So Molly had let go of her insecurities early in her 20’s, and stopped wearing what was trendy and started wearing what she wanted, starting her collection of colorful jumpers. She tried half-heartedly to impress Sherlock but he was the only person she dressed up for.

So when they’d finally crashed into each other, when he’d finally admitted his feelings for her to himself, then eventually to her, she had been bewildered. 

She had seen had the kind of people he attracted, had seen enough of The Woman to feel inadequate to her in comparison. And she’d been told enough over the years, by Sherlock, that she had imperfections, that she wasn’t funny, didn’t have good taste in men, generally didn’t have good taste, or any sense for that matter. It had been driven into her soul that the only thing she was good at was her job, so she excelled at it. But that hadn’t stopped her from laying awake nights next to Sherlock, wondering what she was doing here, in his bed. When he’d whispered he loved her, his voice hoarse, quiet as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear him, she had stared in wonder that the great Sherlock Holmes, the man that she had loved for so long, and loved so hard, this amazing, intelligent, passionate man...how did he love her? Why did he love... _her?_ Mousey, boring, insignificant Molly Hooper.

But now, seeing herself through her madness or through his thoughts...He loved her the way she loved him.

The world saw his faults but she couldn’t see them. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, she saw all his imperfections better than anyone else, but they made him Sherlock, those very ugly things were the very things that composed Sherlock Holmes, the man she adored. The world faulted his lack of social graces or intellect, his disregard for human emotions, even his best friend, from time to time, saw him as some demonic, robotic figure hellbent on doing only what he desired.

Molly saw the man beneath the hellhound the world saw, and she loved the hellhound he pretended to be.

And Sherlock loved her plain brown eyes and boring brown hair and her extremely loud and colorful jumpers and horrible sense of style. He loved her horrible sense of humor and lack of timing or finesse, he loved that she hummed when she was performing an autopsy, her inability to keep herself from making puns about organs when she was holding someone’s intestines in her hands. He loved the way he could just...be with her, that he could sit beside her in silence for hours and know she wouldn’t get upset with him for preferring silence. He thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, thought she defined perfection, believed that everyone else fell short of Molly...

“Nothing in particular,” he murmured, pulling her out of her thoughts, running his hands down her back and she could feel his fingertips tracing the lightning on her back. He was actually thinking about how much he missed the intimacy between them, how much he missed the way she touched him when they were making love, how much he missed having her taste on his tongue. 

She propped her chin on his chest, “really?” she asked with a raised brow, knowing she would make love to him if he just...asked.

But he was terrified that he would disappoint her, that he wouldn’t give her the emotional connection she needed for intimacy, for sex. She smiled slightly against his chest, wondering if he knew being intimate didn’t necessarily have to mean sex. That they were being intimate right now, simply laying against each other in the dark, holding each other with no expectation, simply...present.

“Yes,” he told her, looking down at her with a raised brow, “would you like an enumerated list of the things I'm currently thinking about?”

“Yes,” she told him, raising herself above him on her elbow to look down at him, her hand resting at the center of his chest, “tell me.”

“Alright,” he looked past her at the ceiling, “I’m thinking about the Berkeley Square case. Locked doors, locked windows, surveillance cameras, and an alarm system that was engaged at the moment of death to detect any movements outside the home. The police were the ones to disarm the security system once the victim was reported missing, therefore the alarm did not record anyone outside the premises, nor was any code entered into the system to disarm it. The security lights outside the premises were not tripped, nor were the surveillance cameras inside. The only portion of the house that does not have security cameras installed in the rooms, mysteriously, is the third floor and attic where the victim was presumably killed,” he didn’t stop to breathe, “the many did not die of natural causes. 46, healthy, with no history of illness, with clear ligature marks around his throat and wrists that you determined were made at time of death. There were no signs of a struggle anywhere in the room or the rest of the house, but there was evidence on the body to suggest a fight. And although I'd prefer you to stay home and recover darling, Matheson’s hardly a productive replacement for you in the morgue and can’t seem to determine the time of death.”

“I can go in--”

He cut her off, “no you’re not going in tomorrow,” he said firmly as they both ignored the fact the he’d called her darling. Molly thought she’d heard it in her mind, Sherlock didn’t realize he’d spoken it out loud, “you’re going to stay home, rest, catch your breath,” he brushed her hair away from her cheek, “he’s not going anywhere. Besides, I can bring in John if I absolutely have to.”

“I don’t mind you know,” she told him, hearing how frustrated he was with Matheson, with the prospect of dealing with someone he clearly considered inferior to Molly. 

“I know,” he nodded, “but I mind.”

She smiled, leaning down to brush her lips to his, moving her palm to his pec, pressing against his nipple and she felt him arch into her touch, his breath a gasp as he watched her mouth, the hunger in him rising and she was shocked when she heard his lust, felt the wave of heat blast from his body and into her, warming her, wetting her. He was panting for her, his thoughts screaming for her touch, for her body, for the comfort he found inside her, but when she tried to kiss him, he pulled away. “It’s late,” he murmured.

Molly looked down at her love, at the man’s whose thoughts she could either hear or was imagining as the clock ticked towards ultimate madness. His thoughts were flashing to all the times they made love, all the things they’d done together, discovered together, a clip show of her orgasms in his arms, with his head between her thighs, with him buried so deep inside her. 

But below that was deep terror that he would only be taking from her. Here she was, having gone through something traumatic, being struck by lightning for fuck’s sake, and all he’d want from her was...sex. He would simply take her body, and give nothing back. No comfort, no warmth, no reassurance. Just...sex.

His entire body, mind seemed to be clenched as tight as a fist, waiting, almost hoping she could become upset with him and just walk away, kick him out, disrupt this strange serenity they’d found together.

“You’re right,” she murmured, “I’m already half asleep. Will you stay here with me at least?”

He wanted to say no, wanted to run, didn’t want to take. It was the most beautiful thing to see the way the lightbulb went off in his mind, when he realized she needed him to stay, that she was going to take for a change. “If you want me to, how can I say no?”

Molly smiled from the pit of her soul, brushing her lips to the base of his throat as she settled against his chest, “I love you, Sherlock Holmes,” she told him, feeling his heartbeat beneath her palm. 

_She didn’t know how, half sure she was in her own dreams, half completely certain that she was in Sherlock’s dream, she squared her shoulders and found Sherlock sitting in a bedroom that looked like her old bedroom, in the other flat. He was wearing what he’d been wearing the night he’d gotten home to her, after_ _Sherrinford_ _, the night they’d first made love. He was looking at the bed, hands in his pockets, looking rumpled and exhausted, the way he’d looked and felt that night. He was remembering the desperate way he’d clung to her, the way she’d welcomed him inside her, held him inside her and let him roar his orgasm, keeping him together as he’d cried through his orgasm, screaming into the pillow behind her as he released the terror he’d felt, the trauma he’d experienced._

_Looking down at herself, she saw that she was wearing what she’d had on when they were awake, pajama bottoms and a Doctor Strange t-shirt, her hair in a ponytail, her contact lenses_ _forsaken_ _for black rimmed_ _glasses.”Sherlock_ _,” she touched her fingertips his shoulders and he jumped, turning to face her with a frown._

_“What are you doing here?” he looked so confused._

Good question _Molly thought, chewing her lip, “I’m not sure,” she murmured, stepping closer to him, lifting her hand to cup his jaw in her palm, rubbing her thumb across his mouth, smiling when he opened for her, licking her skin, gently biting the pad of her thumb, “I just know that I've missed you.”_

_“You have?” he frowned._

_She nodded, stepping into him, pressing her breasts to his chest, “of course,” she murmured, “I’_ _ve_ _been walking around like I'm missing half of me,” she began unbuttoning his shirt, wanting to_ _feel the warmth of his skin, this dream Molly bolder than conscious (not crazy) Molly, “you know, before I met you, my love, I never understood why people called their partners their ‘other half’ but now, after you? I know exactly what they mean. What it feels like to be half me, half you. But at the same time, my heart doesn’t feel like it’s in my chest_ _any more_ _.”_

_Sherlock frowned, “what do you mean?”_

_“It’s here,” she pressed her palm against his chest, “it’s inside you, Sherlock.”_

_“Molly,” he sighed her name, gripping her hips and pulling her closer so they were standing flush against each other, nothing between them, “I know what you mean. I feel so out of control when I'm not near you, like I'm losing my mind completely. But when I see you, everything settles. The world makes sense, and I sound so idiotic right now.”_

_“Good thing this is a dream,” she murmured, slipping the shirt off his shoulders, kissing his throat, hearing the familiar sound of_ _contentment_ _he always made when she kissed him right there, behind his ear, “Oh Sherlock,” she moaned, “you have no idea how much I've missed you, missed you touching me,” she pulled back to look into his eyes, “I keep thinking you’ve_ _stopped_ _loving me.”_

_“Molly no,” he breathed, shaking his head vehemently, “no,” he insisted, if anything_ _I._ _._ _I’ve_ _never loved you as much as I do now. That’s why I can’t--” he swallowed, shaking his head again, “I can’t touch you because I feel_ _....less_ _. Inadequate because I can’t tell you how much I love you.”_

_“That’s the most idiotic thing I've ever heard,” she told him, wending kisses across his bare chest, breathing him in, taking his nipple into her mouth and grinned when she felt him grip the back of her head, sinking his strong fingers into her hair, holding her against his chest as his breath exploded out of him, “you can’t stop touching me, kissing me, physically loving me and expect me to know you still love me. It doesn’t work like that babe.”_

_“I need to do right by you,” he told her._

_“You do,” she promised, trailing kisses down his chest to his abs, kneeling in front of him, “and when you don’t, I make sure you know. I love you Sherlock Holmes, all that you are, all that you’ve been, and all that you’ll be. You just have to...trust me.”_

_“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered_ _hoarsely_ _, watching her with glowing eyes, a pained expression on his face as she unbuttoned his trousers._

_“That’s what trust is,” she murmured, pushing his trousers down his long legs, kissing the jutting bones of his hips, “trusting each other not to deliberately hurt the other. That’s what a relationship is. Blind trust, knowledge that you know that I would rather die a thousand deaths than hurt you.”_

_“Molly--” he gasped as she touched his erection through his boxer briefs._

_“You are mine, Sherlock Holmes,” she told him, nuzzling him there, breathing him in as his fingers dug into her hair, “and you always will be.”_


	6. Day 4

When he woke up, Sherlock had to blink several times at the ceiling he was staring at, wondering if this was a dream or reality, because somehow, he wanted this to be a dream and the other world his reality.

He looked down at his body, saw the way Molly’s hand still lay on his chest even though she was sleeping on her stomach, facing the other way. Beneath the sheets his erection was painfully obvious and visible. Glancing at Molly, he was grateful that she was still in deep sleep, giving him enough time to talk his erection down, or embarrass himself. At least he wasn’t in the nude, the way he usually did.

Molly made a sound in her sleep, a satisfied moan as she burrowed into the pillows, turning her head and looking at him sleepily, “baby?” she called him, to his confusion, because she’d never used that endearment with him before, but she lifted herself enough to put her head on his chest, immediately falling back asleep with a secret smile on her lips.

He stroked her hair away from her face, memorizing her features, his heart seeming to swell in his chest and he wondered who the hell in their right minds would think that that particular image was a good representation of anything good happening. If his heart was actually swelling, he would die.

Perhaps they meant just that. That you were so happy, so content, that you literally died from joy.

Not that anyone actually died from joy, or any other emotion, but the illogic of human beings never ceased to create senseless sayings.

But with Molly, he was starting to understand what they were meant to convey.

_My heart doesn’t feel like it’s in my chest anymore._

His dream came to him in a flash of jumbled images and sensations that had him lifting his hips, as if seeking Molly’s warmth in the air.

That dream...he blew out a breath, his eyes fluttering shut without his permission as he remembered that dream.

She’d been so sweet, so serene, so perfect as she’d knelt in front of him, as she’d taken him into her mouth, stroking him with her tongue, with her hands, her brown eyes never leaving his as she took him deep into her mouth, her throat... _Christ_. She was beyond perfect, everything...she was _everything_. She’d told him how much she loved him, that she loved everything he was, had shown him that love in the way she touched him, the way she loved him, smiled at him as she knelt at his feet, coaxing his orgasm.

_I can’t breathe without you Sherlock._

_I’ve missed your taste._

_You can’t ever know what this feels like for me._

He wished he’d told her he knew, felt the same bursting, explosive sensation when he had his head between her thighs, when he was perfectly calm as she panted and moaned and screamed above him, shaking from what he was doing to her.

 _Molly, my Molly_.

He tried to remember if he’d orgasmed in his dream but couldn‘t quite make himself remember, but his erection was pulsing now, desperate for Molly’s warmth, for her mouth...And if his erection wasn’t dying for her, he most certainly felt hungry for Molly, for a taste of her smile.

His subconscious had confessed to Molly that he felt inadequate, terrified of touching her, of taking without giving, loving without giving. Dream Molly had told him she loved him no matter what, that it was a part of being in a relationship, this strange combination of deep insecurity but fastidious trust in the other person, this strange knowledge that their partner would never deliberately hurt them.

Maybe that was why it was so hard for partners that were cheated on. It wasn’t just the physical act of engaging in coitus with another person, it was the breaking of trust, of promises, of the unspoken pact in a relationship that the other persons “heart” was safe, that their feelings, their emotions were going to be protected.

Molly knew him better than anyone on earth, understood him better than even Mycroft, yet she trusted him enough to be in a relationship with him. He didn’t know if that made her the strongest person alive or the most senseless, to trust him with...anything. With herself.

Either way, she had seen him at his worst, at his darkest, _knew_ what he was, how cold he would but she’d still found... _something_ in him to keep him around, trusted something in him that had her calling him, asking him to stay the night with her because she felt unsettled, because she wanted his company. She never cared if he was good or bad company either, welcoming his most impatient mood with the same sweetness she welcomed his playful moods with. She kissed his cheek in greeting even when he barged into her lab and demanded she skip lunch to help him, still hugged him when he’d spent the entire day in a pisser of a mood and had been lashing out.

He took but...she... _gave_. She gave so freely, so sweetly and he just...took.

What had he ever given Molly?

When was the last time he made her feel the way she made him feel, like the entire world was created just for them to enjoy?

When was the last time he had done something for Molly just to make her smile? To make her feel better after a long day?

He was such an arsehole, he always left her brokenhearted, exasperated, annoyed. He never brought joy to her day, just tedious repetitive disregard and blatant, purposeful ignorance.

The thoughts began to swirl, snowballing into an avalanche of inadequacy, of pain he didn’t understand, pain he didn’t know what to do with. At least he didn’t have to worry about his erection...

He glanced down to find Molly watch him with steady brown eyes, her hand tucked against her cheek on his chest, her thumb stroking him, “I’ve got to go,” he managed to say around the lump in his throat.

He wanted her to fight, expected to see disappointment in her eyes, the same disappointment he’d seen there before when he abruptly left her in the morning. Instead she nodded with such understanding that he felt a dagger in his stomach would’ve been less painful, the sensation more dulled than this, whatever the hell _this_ was.

Molly lifted herself away from him, settling against the pillows on her side of the bed. He watched with curiosity as she took the pillow he’d been sleeping on, hugging it against her chest as he stood up, straightening his clothes, running his hands through his hair, hoping he could make it out of her flat without having some sort of fit. “I’ll see you later,” he managed.

He was nearly out of her bedroom when she called out for him, “I know you’re in a hurry, but can you do me another favor? Can you give me a kiss before you leave?”

How could he refuse what he wanted more than anything in the world. So he turned back, kneeling over her on the bed, and he kissed her. for the first time in eight months, he kissed her, filled his lungs with Molly Hooper, with his heart, with his soulmate. She moaned in his mouth, cupping his jaw in her palm as she deepened their kiss, as she stroked and coaxed his tongue into her own mouth, gasping at the sensation, overwhelming him.

Molly pulled away with a sigh, smiling dreamily as she fell back against her pillows, “mmm,” she licked her swollen red lips, “thank you baby.”

He slipped out of the flat, rubbing his lips, rubbing her kiss into his mouth it seemed, deep in thought as he walked aimlessly through the early morning breeze.

 _Baby_.


	7. Day 5

Madness or new ability, Molly went to work the next day.

She wasn’t feeling ill or heavy, the way she had been the first day. In fact, she felt perfectly well, more energized than she usually was if she really thought about, as if she had lost her tolerance for caffeine and kept taking shots of espresso. She would have been more than happy to stay in her flat if she felt ill at all, but she wasn’t, and staying home for no reason wasn’t all that appetizing.

Music was blasting in the lab the way it usually was when she worked, trying to determine the cause of death of the man from Berkeley Square, or some sort of clue that would help Sherlock and Greg piece together what had happened that night. She was sitting at her computer now, waiting for it to spit out the results she was waiting for from the bloodwork she’d submitted, her eyes growing heavy from having stared into a microscope for nearly four hours straight.

_Molly, Molly, my Molly, I've bloody missed you my Molly. Why didn’t you call, demand that I come to you last night? Christ, I almost came to sit on your stoop like a pathetic cat, wanting your attention, needing your affection._

She chuckled slightly, imagining what Sherlock would have looked like—a rather large black cat with the devil of a temper, pawing at everything and everyone that passed by her door.

He was coming downstairs, he was within the vicinity at least.

After that explosive kiss yesterday, she hadn’t wanted to intrude on him, taking the kiss as a sign that he was finally starting to understand, starting to find his way back to her even though his thoughts remained horrified at himself. She freely admitted that the dream had been rather inspired and dirtier than she’d intended, kinkier than she had really thought it would be, but it had worked apparently. Worked enough, anyway. She could feel the way he wanted her, feeling like it was static electricity around him, half expecting him to hump the air as his fantasies got more lurid, more graphic.

And who knew...Sherlock Holmes loved it when she called him “baby”. She’d always assumed he would hate it but apparently it worked for him.

With his usual disruptive flair, he threw open the doors to the lab, “Molly!” his hands were in his pocket, Greg and John following him at a harassed looking pace, “thought we’d agreed you’d stay home for the duration.”

“No,” she said calmly, smiling as thoughts invaded her mind, “we agreed that I would stay home if I didn’t feel well, and I feel well,” she walked towards him, putting her hand on his chest and standing on tiptoes to kiss him lightly on the lips, “hi baby.”

The pleasure that flared in his thoughts, the burst through him made her shiver as she grinned up into his eyes, “hi,” he murmured, momentarily stunned by the kiss. _You taste like you’ve been gulping down latte after latte, you taste like life Molly, how is that possible? And why do I suddenly have an affinity for being referred to by a nickname from my lover that compares me to a mewling, puking, annoying infant?_

Hiding her grin, she walked back to her computer, “what can I do for you gents?”

John was frowning at her, “are you sure you’re alright? I mean from what I've heard--”

“I should’ve been fried,” she nodded, reaching behind her to sweep her hair away from her neck to show him the way lightning had marked her, “but I don’t know why it didn’t. I feel pretty normal,” she wanted to giggle at the blatant lie, “but I dunno, maybe the coppering in the house took the brunt, maybe because I was touching Sherlock?” she shrugged, “who knows.”

“Well, you know what they say about that bloody house,” Greg said with a raised brow.

“Don’t tell me Scotland Yard believes in ghost stories!” Sherlock scoffed, rolling his eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn’t fall out of his head. His feet carried him towards Molly, standing next to her as she remained seated on her stool.

“I’ve seen some strange things in my time,” Greg said simply.

Molly rested her head against Sherlock’s arm, wishing she could hear his thoughts now but they were probably directed at poor Greg and the Yard, so she didn’t hear him. She did notice the way he stopped using his arm to express himself, to keep from shaking her off and used his other arm to talk with, “such as?” he demanded.

“Well,” Greg scratched the back of his head with the file he was holding, “I kept seeing things out of the corner of my eye when we were there the other day. I know you saw things to Mols, I saw it in your eyes.”

“I don’t know what I was seeing,” she admitted, her head still casually resting against Sherlock’s bicep, “if the wiring in that house hasn’t been upgraded, or if it hasn’t been checked completely, there’s probably a lot of toxins that are still leaking out, playing tricks on us.”

“Then why didn’t Sherlock see or hear anything?”

“Because he’s my Sherlock?” Molly grinned at the shock on all of their faces, the way pleasure seemed to burst from Sherlock again, “I’m not sure what to tell you right now,” she looked up at him, “if you can get your hands on the wiring, on the electricity around the neighborhood, the type of copper wire they used in the house, maybe we can determine cause of death because I can’t find anything organic.”

“Meaning whatever killed him was external,” Greg clarified.

“You could say it was _super_ natural,” Molly grinned and was so surprised that Sherlock barked a laugh at her terrible joke.

Greg and John left after twenty minutes of what was essential a brain trust meeting, discussing everything that had been found, everything they still needed to look for, and what the logical next steps were. Even though he was impatient, Sherlock still remained, half-listening to what was being said around him as he played with his phone, pulling up pieces of information, his thoughts moving in leaps and bounds and never once moving away from Molly.

“Can I talk to you before you head out?” she murmured as he moved to follow Greg and John out the door, “it’ll only be a minute,” she added for the benefit of the other two, standing up and taking his hand, leading Sherlock to the privacy of her office.

His thoughts grew alarmed, terrified that she was going to tell him some terrible news, but he looked calm as she closed the door behind them, locking them in. “What is it,” he finally asked, managing to look disinterested even though his thoughts were screaming in a panic she would never have guessed.

“Nothing,” she murmured, standing in the middle of her office, “I just need you to give me your arms, your comfort for a little bit. Feeling unsettled without you.”

She'd never thoughts were capable of stuttering until now, and she smiled when she saw the way he seemed to skid to a halt. His thoughts were so strong, his feelings so intense that he couldn’t keep the sweetness from his face, letting his expression soften as he opened his arms, walking towards her in long strides as she met him half way. Molly wrapped her arms around his lean waist, leaning her cheek against his chest and sighed her relief when he held her, crushing her against his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin. He tentatively started moving his hands over her back, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and he finally took a breath, releasing the tension in his muscles and she smiled as his thoughts calmed too.

            “Mmm,” she sighed, burrowing against him, “my Sherlock,” she murmured, “it’s ridiculous how much I miss you when you’re not around me. Like I’m missing a piece of myself.”    

            “What an absurd thought,” he told her, even though he was overwhelmed with the confession, his thoughts swirling, and she smiled when she heard the logical way he deduced that yes, he felt like he was missing a piece of himself too. Not at an anatomical piece but a piece nonetheless, the piece that made him smile, the peace that gave him peace.

            “Isn’t it though?” she turned to press a kiss to his chest, hearing his sigh, his desperate thoughts as he wished he could take her, wished he had the courage to kiss her like he had yesterday.        

            _I want your breath in my lungs, Molly, my love_.

            “But I guess loves makes us think absurd things,” she smiled up at him, press a kiss to his chin, to the dip between his absurdly luscious lower lip and chin.

            “Perhaps it does,” he frowned down at her, deep in thought, and she listened to the way he argued with himself, the way he yearned to tell her that he missed her breath but just couldn’t bring himself to it.

            “Why don’t you come over tonight baby? I could make us dinner? Unless you have work to do, in which case I’ll come to you, if you want my company,” she told him calmly, noting the change even with herself. She remembered how impatient she had started becoming, how hungry she’d been for his time, growing frustrated when his work took him away from her. The more she loved him, the harder it had become to let him spend hours, days, working, studying, conducting experiments in the kitchen.

            His thoughts pulled her away from her own, listening to the delight.

            _At this point, I would burn the world down if it kept from coming to you tonight_.

            “Why have you started calling me baby?” he asked instead.

            She grinned at him, “I don’t know, I’ve been inspired I guess?” Molly shrugged, “I’ll stop if you don’t like it.”           

            “No no, it’s not that,” he said quickly. _Well played Molly, you’ve managed to trap me_ , “you can call me whatever you’d like to be honest, even Scott if you’re so inclined. I was just wondering why ‘baby’ has become your new favorite,” but his thoughts shut down as he looked down at her with a slight frown, “is something the matter Molly? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

            Molly shook her head, thinking he would be more convinced of her insanity than she was if she told him she could hear his thoughts, his emotions, “nothing of importance,” she omitted, never able to quite lie to him outright, “so my place, or Baker Street?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm literally writing these chapters five seconds before I post them so I'm extremely happy you're loving it!


	8. Night 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED- adult content below

He sheepishly asked her to come to Baker Street and she did, carrying bags of Indian take-out with her. When Mrs. Hudson saw her come through the front entrance, she looked at Molly as if she were afraid of her, after the shouting match last time. But Molly had grinned at Mrs. Hudson, appeasing the landlady before heading upstairs to her love. 

Pausing a few steps down, Molly smiled to herself, hearing the quiet beauty of the violin as he played upstairs, his thoughts hidden from her. If he was playing, it meant he was thinking about the case, that his thoughts were occupied were something that required the quiet strings of a violin. She didn’t want to interrupt the peace he seemed to find in his violin, didn’t want to intrude on his quiet moment but the food was getting cold, and she missed him terribly. 

When she pushed the door open, love for him overwhelmed her. He was standing with his back to the window, wearing black trousers and a black shirt that hugged his torso, his blood red house coat covering him in austerity, his beautiful eyes closed as he played the instrument with precision, perfection. The violin had a soul when Sherlock played it, he gave it a voice, emotions, feelings, thoughts. He gave it motion, animating it with his long fingers. 

She didn’t recognize the piece he was playing but it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard, as if the notes sighed and moaned with each smooth motion of the bow, with every movement of his elegant fingers. His pale eyes flipped open and she grinned at the onslaught of pure, lovely energy, the thoughts that screamed her name, that called her a thousand sweet things that he would never speak out loud. His smile told her everything she needed to know, “Molly,” he breathed, “I didn’t hear you come in,” he told her.

Setting down the food in the kitchen, she dropped her back and stripped off her coat quickly, wanting as few layers as possible between, “hi baby,” she smiled when she finally walked towards him, kissing him in greeting, her hand on the center of his chest.

Something in him was different, his thoughts calmer, more focused, less angry with his inability to express himself, to tell her how he felt, to heal the canyon between them. But he felt the rift closing, felt them coming closer to some sort of peace, getting back to each other at last. “Hi,” he tried to bring himself to call her “babe” or even “baby”, he wanted to call her his darling the way he did in his thoughts, and she watched him laugh, “I’m trying really hard to call you baby right now Molly but I just can’t do it. It sounds so much better from your lips.”

Molly wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing his head down to kiss him lightly. He finally trusted her enough with a private thought, with a private feeling even though he was embarrassed, his ears turning as red as they did when he was about to orgasm. She delighted in the sheepishness in his eyes, smiled at his honesty, “maybe try ‘darling’? You’ve called me that a few times,” she kissed him again, a press of her lips to his, a momentary communion between loves, soulmates, “say it with me, dar. Ling.”

Sherlock wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer to himself, “again. I didn’t catch it that time.”

“I’m a terrible instructor,” she managed to say around the lump in her throat, the teasing in his tone catching her off-guard, his thoughts filled with self-congratulations, warming him her as effectively as if she were standing next to a fire when he thought to himself that he’d happily die watching her smile like that at him. 

 _My beautiful Molly_.

Brushing her mouth to his, she murmured, “dar,” touching her tongue to his open mouth, “ling,” she murmured, sinking her fingers into his curls, “dar,” again she touched her tongue to his open mouth, “ling.”

_My darling, my love, my beautiful Molly. My heartbeat, my soul, the breath in my lungs. What gives you the power to do this to me? How do you render me speechless? Ineffective?_

“Darling,” he murmured, and he kissed her breath into his lungs, making her moan with his passion as he pressed her against his chest, against his stomach, his thighs and hips cradled by her.

_I want to touch you, I want to love you, I want to taste you, feel you. Molly, I've starved without you. Lawrence of Arabia lost in the Sahara. You are the lemonade when he takes_ _Aqabba_ _. Molly, Molly, Molly..._

She opened her mouth to him with a grin, encouraging him but not initiating any play between them, simply widening her stance and tell him that he could touch her. And he read her clearly, pulling back slightly, panting softly against her lips, his eyes wide yet soft with passion, with the lust she felt thrumming her veins, a hum of want in the back of her mind, “Molly?” he whispered, “will you--”

_Let me touch you, taste you, kiss you. Let me_ _....let_ _me...Christ, let this worthless being worship you Molly._

“Yes,” she sighed, “touch me.”

He set her down on his armchair, nearly toppling the small table there so he could kneel down between her legs. She sat up, opening her legs for him and kissed him, sighing in relief when she felt his hands traveling beneath her shirt, making her arch against his palms, shouting in pleasured surprise when he touched her breasts, when she felt the heat of his palm through the lace of her bra. She was in heaven, listening to his thoughts becoming more and more frenzied, desperate for her as his movements remained controlled.

Molly sighed his name, nearly weeping when he pushed her shirt up, his eyes never leaving hers as he pushed the cups of her bra aside to draw her taut nipple into her mouth, “my Sherlock,” she sighed, as he thought  _home, this is home_.

He distracted her with his mouth, laving her nipple with his tongue, sucking on her skin and making her sigh and moan repeatedly, her fingers in his hair as she urged him against her. “You feel so good,” she told him as his hands traveled down to her legs, her stomach, unbuttoning her trousers.

“You--” he pulled away, his hands quickly drawing down her trousers and panties, “you feel like home.”

She couldn’t speak, felt tears sting her eyes as he bent down to kiss her stomach, leaving a trail of fire from her navel down...down...down...gently biting her hipbones, pressing the gentlest kiss to her pubic bone as he threw her clothes to the side, “you’re my everything, you know that right?” she asked him, watching,  _feeling_  the way he brought his hands to spread her legs, kneading the muscles there as he kissed the inside of her thigh. 

_I wonder if you know how beautiful you look right now, how beautiful you are here, your wet cunt, so ready for me Molly. And Christ you look unbelievable, the heat in yours. I wonder if you’ll think I’ve completely lost my mind if I tell you how I’m obsessed with the crinkled brown hair here, my darling. You make such a wonderful sound when I touch you with my fingertip for the first time, you always sound so shocked, so surprised, so bloody ready for me to touch you._

And she made the exact sound he’d been hoping for, his long middle finger slipping deep inside her as he licked his lips, as he lowered his mouth to her, making her arch off the armchair as he touched his tongue to her, as he licked her and ate her, as he breathed her in and swallowed her. She brought her legs up to rest on his shoulders, locking her ankles behind him, simultaneously trapping him between her legs and opening herself to him. 

It was the most exquisite torture to hear his maddened, red-hot thoughts as he ate her, as she listened to his thoughts and the sounds he made between her legs, the sensation of his tongue, his fingers...so deep...so... _Sherlock_. 

She felt like a violin as he used the same hands, the same patience, the same concentration to make her groan and sigh, to cry out, building her orgasm and driving her towards him.

 _That’s it my Molly. Fuck my Molly, come for me. That’s my beautiful girl, that’s my beautiful come. Fuck, grind against my face my darling, come for me. Molly_.

Her orgasm felt like a bomb that had gone off, rendering her motionless, trembling beneath him, trying her best not to scream but she was sure Mrs. Hudson heard the way she cried out for him, cried out for her love, for her Sherlock. “Oh God!” she cried, her eyes fluttering shut, her world reduced to Sherlock...only Sherlock. He was all that ever mattered...

When she came back to earth, she looked down to see his curly hair on her stomach, his cheek against her navel, his thoughts chaotic as she touched his curls. He looked up at her with a smile that hid the chaos of his thoughts, his lips red and wet from her. She wanted to turn those self-destructive, self-depricating thoughts away from him, thoughts that reminded him of his faults, of the darkness he brought into her life, thoughts that told him he was worthless, unworthy of her. So she told him she felt like his violin, that he could use his fingers on her in certain ways to make sounds.

Sherlock smiled slightly, “that’s what I was working on when you came in, the new piece I’m composing. It's called  _Molly,_ trying to put your moans and sighs into music.”

Molly sat up, forcing herself to smile as she cupped his face in her palms, hoping to kiss the darkness out of him, bring her hand down to touch his erection as she kissed him slowly, tasting herself on him but he gripped her wrist, silently shaking his head. 


	9. Day 7

            To say that Molly Hooper was distracted would have been an understatement. To say she was worried, distressed, paranoid, frightened…even greater underestimations of her mindset.

            She wanted to be productive, wanted to get some work done, wanted to apply herself to the cases that were occupying Sherlock’s mind in an effort to give him some peace, give him some space to think, but she was so distracted by the memories of the night before, she couldn’t get herself to quite focus.

            It hadn’t been that she hadn’t spent the night the way she’d anticipated that she would, and it wasn’t that he’d pulled away from her.

            His thoughts were haunting, the broken way he hadn’t refused to let her touch him, the heartbreaking, gut-wrenching look even in his eyes as he’d pulled away from her. “This was about you,” he’d told her, helping her right her clothes, pressing a kiss to her cheek in the most chaste way, as if he hadn’t just had his head buried between her thighs, “Not me.”        

            Molly had tried to hold him, to hug him against her, to give them both some peace but he had been so lost in his thoughts, in the darkness that swallowed him, that she simply followed him to the kitchen. They ate in silence, though she saw it as a victory when he let Molly hook her leg with his under the table. But he was so gone in his thoughts, in the darkness, she couldn’t reach him.

            “What are you thinking about?” she’d murmured.

            _Why do you come here? Why do you keep exposing yourself to me, Molly? Why are you allowing me to be so near you? Why don’t you go? Leave? I’m sounding melodramatic even to myself but I can’t help wanting to protect you, wanting to keep all the darkness, all the ugliness of the world away from you and yet here I am, demanding your time, your love, your affection._

_Taking, as always._

_You were struck by lightning, you’re clearly going through some sort of post-traumatic experience, some sort of emotional reaction to the strike that is a perfect side-effect of such a massive jolt of electricity, yet I demand your body, your orgasm. I demand sex when you need comfort._

            “The Berkeley Square case,” he murmured, wiping his mouth on the napkin with good manners.              “Oh,” she’d managed to breath, her butter chicken and saffron rice forgotten as she watched the frightening way he hid his thoughts from his expression, from his eyes, “any new developments?”

            “I’m just studying the history of the house now, but no, nothing useful, nothing that can help us find the culprit,” he’d told her, nothing on his face hinting at his chaotic thoughts.

            Her heart had splintered into pieces for him. She knew the amount of energy it took to hide feelings, to hide expressions, to hide thoughts, especially powerful thoughts such as self-hatred, self-disgust and unbridled rage at your own actions. She wasn’t nearly as talented as Sherlock as she let loose now and then, but Sherlock…There was something terrifying when she really thought about what it meant, when she considered all these years that he’d strived to hide his thoughts, his feelings, his emotions. She remembered him in the most terrifying circumstances, looking stoic.

            Now she knew better.

            “That was amazing you know,” she murmured, setting her fork down to reach over and touch his forearm, tracing the powerful vein, “what we did in your armchair, I really missed that. I’ve missed you.”

            _You deserve better. You deserve so much better than this Molly, you deserve the finest restaurants with a man who understands social graces well enough to take you to London’s finest restaurants, with a man who can give you himself with nothing held back, no thoughts hidden. Yet the thought of you in someone else’s arms, smiling at someone else, saying someone else’s name makes me murderous. You’re stuck with me and yet I want you to go so far away from me…_

            But he hadn’t said anything for a while and she’d watched, wondering if you would let her comment simply linger in the air between them like a ghost, a horrible, unspoken thing, an unwelcome thing. “It was rather wonderful, wasn’t it,” he managed to murmur, but hadn’t looked at her, “but I…I think it best if you go home tonight Molly, I have a lot of work I must get through if I’m to solve this case. I’m not very good company,” then he’d scoffed, “but then, when have I ever been good company?”

            Molly had gone around the kitchen table to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, “you’re always my favorite company,” she’d told him, bidding him good night not long after that and going home to not sleep.  

            So here she was now, standing outside 50 Berkeley Square in Mayfair, playing with the key Greg had given her when she told him she wanted to go. He’d tried to talk her out of going alone, but she’d stood her ground until he’d relented.

            It wasn’t just wanting to get answers for the mysterious death of the new owner that drove Molly here. There was something else that had been calling her back, something she couldn’t understand, a whisper against her skin that she needed to come back here, that she needed to revisit this place. Maybe it was the lightning strike, the side effects that were allowing her to read Sherlock’s thoughts, to visit his dreams. But she couldn’t quite believe that either…there was something… _else_.

            She briefly thought about texting Sherlock to let him know where she was but decided to let him keep to himself, and stuffed the phone back in her pocket, squaring her shoulders as she walked into the house.

            Even in broad daylight, the house was unsettling. It was a perfectly normal looking house in Mayfair, the interior open, and it should have been welcoming with all the open spaces and giant windows but there was something not quite right about it. She expected someone to be waiting for her around every corner, her ears twitching as if registering sounds she couldn’t hear, glancing behind herself every few steps, convinced there would be someone standing behind her.     

            Rubbing the back of her neck, she walked up the stairs, feeling the…air becoming heavier and heavier, as if she were walking through rooms full of people who all watched her pass through the spaces around them. She told herself she was letting the stories about the house get to her, kept telling herself that she thought there was someone behind her because of the old wiring in the house, wanted to convince herself that her imagination was getting away from her.

            Finally at the fourth floor of the house where the owner had died, she had to stop, closing her eyes and trying to clear her vision. The entire floor seemed to be covered in some sort of mist, which was impossible. There were no open windows and no reason for there to be…fog inside the house. Rubbing her eyes, she told herself it was just her vision wonking out on her again.

            When she opened her eyes again, it was gone and she took a deep breath. Standing with her back pressed against the door, she looked at the floor where the body had lain, calculating the spot she would have been kneeling on when she got struck by lightning. She’d half expected there to be some sort of burn mark on the spot in the hardwood but there wasn’t, as if nothing had happened.                 

            Annoyed with herself, she refocused her attention on the facts and circumstances, reminding herself how the body had been discovered, recalling every bit of information Sherlock had shared with her over the course of the past few days. She slid down the wall, sitting on the floor, her palms on the floor and she gasped.

            _A woman…beautiful…dark hair…light colored eyes…wearing a white dress with small, red roses on it…laughing, smiling, loved as she ran into this very room…pressing her back against the wall Molly sat against….and here he came…her lover, her mate…wearing dark trousers and a waistcoat with a pocket watch chain swinging from his motion, his dark mustache perfectly groomed, the ends twisted upwards…he was the opposite of her, light colored hair, dark eyes. But his smile matched hers as he called her his pet, as she giggled, welcoming his kiss, hugging him tightly as love bloomed around them._

Molly’s eyes flew open and she wanted to scream but the sound didn’t come out as she looked at the woman standing in front of her, her expression no longer serene but blank…lost…as void as the rest of her floating body. Before Molly could react, the woman had disappeared into thin air, leaving Molly breathless, gasping for air.       

            “Hello?” she heard a familiar voice calling from downstairs, “anybody home?”

            “Sh..” she had to try several times before she got her voice to work, “Sherlock?” she called.

            _Molly? What are you doing here?_

            She heard his pounding footsteps up the stairs, “Molly?” he called, worry tinting his tone, “what are you doing?” He demanded as he came to stand in the doorway.

            She looked up at him, blinking rapidly, “I—I came to see if I could find something to help you with the case.”

            “Didn’t you have work?”

            “I’m on my lunch break,” she told him, hauling herself up to her feet, trying to dust off her hands and trousers.

            He came over to her, his concern for her overwhelming his thoughts, his urge not to touch her lost as he noted how pale she looked, how wide her eyes were, how terrified she seemed to be, “what’s wrong,” he asked, cupping her face in his palms, forcing her to look up at him.   
            _Why did you tell me you’re here, why are you here alone? Molly, why would you be here looking for something to help me with? You arrogant, brave little mouse, why do you look so terrified? Christ, your heart is beating so fast I can see it tattooing at your throat._

            “I thought---” she shook her head, “I thought I saw something, I guess I’m just a bit on the edge.”

            “What did you see?” he asked curiously.

            _Because I thought I saw something too, a man with a handlebar mustache in dark clothes with blonde hair. But I could see through him. He looked so real, when I heard you up here, I thought there was another person in the house, I was half expecting that man._

            “A—a woman,” she murmured, her heavy arms finally lifting to grip his hips for support, “I don’t know what I saw, honestly. I might just been having…having a fit because I thought she was a ghost…but I saw her so clearly. She was beautiful,” she shook her head, “there must be some sort of electromagnetic leak, these old houses…these old houses…usually have faulty wiring and the copper…”

            “I checked into that,” he told her, smoothing her cheek with his thumb, “the new owner had everything updated. I even had Anderson bring an EMF detector in here and he found high readings but nothing that leaks. They were free-floating spots, according to him.”

            “Free…floating,” she frowned, looking away from his eyes for just a heartbeat and her heart stopped when she glanced over his shoulder in the doorway, seeing the same woman, her head tilted now, her expression blank but…yearning? “Christ!” she gasped and Sherlock followed her gaze.

            “What,” he demanded but the woman was gone.

            “Uhm,” Molly blinked rapidly, “we should-- I should probably get out of here, I’m seeing things..”


	10. Day 8

_When Lord Archibald “Archie” Hunt had married Mary Abbington on the 8 th of August in 1888, all of London had been buzzing with the news of the new couple. Department stores and knickknack stores alike sold little miniatures of them, savvy business men created commemorative plates and plaques to mark the blessed day, 8/8/888. It was a blessed number, to be sure, and nothing but good things could ever happen to the couple that was married on such a day.      _

_Archie was loved by one and all. His business rivals respected his honesty and integrity, his friends adored him for his simple ability to love and put everyone at ease no matter the circumstances. He was considered a man’s man, a great sportsman, an accomplished pollo player, and he could have married anyone he wished. He had his father’s fortune, the estates that he’d inherited, and built an empire using his good fortune, he was a great catch, the most wanted bachelor in London society. Grand dames were throwing their daughters at his feet, practically begging him to marry their pretty daughters with their large fortunes and dowries._

_But Archie only had eyes for Mary. Mary, from a poor family, on the verge of being completely rejected by the ton. She wore plain, simple dresses and everyone knew she wore costume jewelry. Where Mary’s smile came from, where her ability to light up a room came from, no one knew. She was from a disgraced family but never acted like it, never seemed to feel the pity everyone expected her to feel for herself. Mary was an odd creature too, she liked reading, preferred intellectual conversations, and her knowledge of various rose species was becoming well known in London society._

_When Archie saw her at Westcliff’s annual ball, he never looked at another woman ever again. Everyone told him to leave her be, to forget her and marry someone with more social connections, who brought with her a family whose resources he could use to advance his business, his estates. But he didn’t listen, buying a huge tract of land in Knightsbridge with orders for the architect to create a rose garden on the estate, the biggest in the world, Archie had demanded with his crooked smile. When he’d told his fiancée that they would have to live in his little Mayfair house until construction was over, Mary had told him she didn’t care if they lived in a pup tent, as long as they were together._

_He bought her all the jewelry he could think of, brought the best French designers and seamstresses to design her wedding dress, to fill her closets with exquisite clothing. Better than the queens, he’d demanded, wanting to spoil his love, to wrap her in the finest silks and furs in the world, to ensure that only the best touched his beloved’s skin. She’d accepted his gifts, but one day, having asked the seamstresses for a few moments of privacy, her youngest sister acting as chaperone in the room, she had told her beloved that she didn’t need anything in this world beyond his love._

_And he’d finally understood that day, that Mary loved him because he was Archie, because he was sunshine to her the way she was for him._

_Their wedding day was practically declared a holiday in London, and Archie and his Mary had spent the day smiling so wide that their cheeks hurt by the time they got to their Mayfair home._

_They lived in bliss for months, starting each day with each other and ending each day with each other. They argued, as do all couples, but Mary, the more levelheaded of the two, always ensured they found their peace before they went to bed. They attended parties and balls and garden parties, and were terribly cheeky because she never danced anyone but her husband, and he grew visibly irritated when other gentlemen thought they could distract her away from him. He was scandalous because he kissed her cheek in public, held her hand, nuzzled her palm. A man in love, and unafraid to show it._

_Mary was alone one night with the servants downstairs, waiting for her Archie to come home when there had been a crashing sound downstairs, startling her as she’d sat reading in the downstairs drawing room. She’d called out for the butler, for one of the maids, but no one heard her, except the robber._

_When Archie found her the next morning, her body hacked to pieces, butchered in their home…he went mad, as any man would. He hadn’t touched her, hadn’t looked at her except a glance that saw her beautiful black hair matted with blood, her milky white hand, the hand more familiar to him than his own skin, reaching for the door, her fingers stretching as if she’d been calling for him, waiting for her Archie to come and rescue her._

_He’d screamed so loud he’d torn his throat, his hands flying to his throat and he’d tried to physically tear his throat out but he’d only succeeded at shredding his cravat, marking his neck with scratch marks. He’d screamed and sworn vengeance, raged and promised to find his beloved’s killer and bring them to justice, to make them answer for what they’d done to his Mary._

_He’d killed six people by the time the police caught him, two more bodies were found when he told the police where’d hidden them._

_Archibald “Archie” Hunt was hung by the neck until dead on the sixth of June at six in the afternoon._

_What an unlucky number._

            Molly looked at Sherlock, her eyes wide as she listened to him tell her the story of the houses’ original owners, “who did…who did he kill?”

            Sherlock, sitting in his favorite armchair with his hands steepled, watched her calmly, “the servants. They’d helped the robber get inside the house and it would seem Hunt somehow discovered the betrayal and exacted his revenge. His last words were of his regret that he and Mary would go to sleep without having resolved their squabble earlier that day.”

            “Oh God,” she moaned, clutching her throat, unable to keep tears from brimming, “they died fighting.”

            Sherlock nodded, “it would seem so.”

            “I can’t imagine living with that regret,” she murmured, bringing her knees up to her chest, huddled into the corner of his couch with the yellow smiley face behind her.

            _I can_.

            She looked at him sharply but his expression was blank, “must have been horrific. Legend says that people who go into this house see Mary and Archie’s ghost, along with a whole cast of other ghosts. But of all the ghosts in this house, these are the two that are peaceful and have yet to have any deaths attributed to them. Well, ghost related deaths at any rate since Archie slaughtered eight people in the wake of Mary’s death.

            _If this case had come to me two years ago, I would have stared at it, dumbfounded, unable to understand why a man would be driven to such anger, such rage to murder eight people. But now that you’re my home Molly, I know I would slaughter thousands for you. You can’t imagine the terror I live, with the nightmares I have…Euros got so close to you. I have nightmares where you don’t answer the phone, where your flat was rigged. For those few moments when I was without you, staring at that empty coffin, imagining you in it…Molly…How can I live without you._

            “I feel like there’s a lesson here,” she murmured instead of crying out in pain as she listened to his thoughts, “something about telling the people around you that you love them, about never letting anger overshadow the love, about always speaking your mind.”

            He watched her with shrewd eyes, “are you trying to tell me to speak my mind? I fear I already do that Molly and it brings me nothing but trouble.”

            Molly laughed at him, bringing her head down to rest on the armchair, watching him across the room, “you do. And you piss people off left and right, makes me proud,” she grinned, “but you never really say how you feel, what you’re really thinking,” she murmured, “you only scratch the surface of your thoughts, and you _never_ talk about your feelings unless you’re in a dark room with me.”

            Sherlock tried to find a smile for her, tried not to show how touched he was by her perceptiveness, “well,” he shocked her, “I only trust you with anything ‘real’ that I feel or think. And the dark—” he clenched his jaw, his thoughts a cacophony of insecurity as he forced the words out, “protects me from seeing the hatred on your face.”

            She balked, sitting up. She wasn’t sure if she was shocked that he had spoken it out loud or the knowledge that he felt so ashamed of who he was that he had to hide in the dark from her, “hatred?” she repeated, “why would you see hatred?”

            “I’m not a good man, Molly,” he told her softly, “I’m not a man at all.”

            “Sherlock—”

            He shook his head, “I know what I am, who I am. When I thought that Redbeard was…was just Redbeard, when I didn’t remember, I thought my inability or unwillingness to…feel was pure intellect, something that made me more than a man, better than a man. But ever since I started…remembering…Victor,” he shook his head, “I see how much I hurt you, how incapable I am of truly feeling. I’m emotionally stunted, crippled. My emotional maturity stopped the day Victor disappeared and you deserve better, everyone around me deserves better than what I offer them.”

            “How can you believe that?”

            “To love,” he ignored her question, sitting forward in his chair, looking down at his feet as his thoughts screamed at him to stop, “to trust someone enough to _love_ them, to build a relationship with them, is the greatest form of trust in the world, you’ve taught me that. But how—” he cleared his throat, “how can I ask you to love me when I don’t even love me? When I don’t even understand what that means?”

            “Oh my love,” she sighed, tears brimming as she wrung her hands, trying to understand what she should do, what he needed from her, “how can I make you understand?”

            He shook his head, “that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Trying to make me understand how to love you properly.”

            “You misunderstand, my love,” she stood up, suddenly wishing she couldn’t hear his thoughts, so she could tell him what she needed to without needing to double, triple think. Molly walked towards him, sinking to her knees in front of him and taking his hands as she looked into his eyes. Her beautiful Sherlock, with the halo of black curls, that high forehead, those sharp cheekbones, the jaw that melted into multiple chins at his will, that exquisite mouth, that nose…and those gorgeous, exotic eyes that shifted colors with the light, framed by those thick brows and pale eyelashes that were so long and curly they fanned across his cheekbones when he blinked. “What you don’t understand Sherlock, is that love, relationship is this weird, illogical thing where I trust you not to break my heart. Where I give you all that I am, knowing you might break my trust, my heart, but needing to give it to you anyway.

            Sherlock, you love more than anyone I’ve ever met,” she gripped his hands, “you’ve done more for your family and friends, you’ve given up more for their sake than anyone I’ve ever met, ever heard of. That’s love, my darling, that’s what it means to love. Yes I become exasperated once in a while with you, and I know I annoy you endlessly but at the end of the day? I fell in love with you years ago, Sherlock, long before Victor or your sister. Hell, I’ve loved you longer than you’ve known John Watson, or came into contact with Moriarty,” she kissed the back of his hands, knowing he was listening intently, hoping she was getting through to him. “I fell in love with you when you thought you were the greatest human being that ever lived, when you were arrogant and self-possessed and self-obsessed, when you thought being a rude arsehole was something to be proud of. I fell in love with you when you were an arrogant prick,” she rose up on her knees, kissing his cheek, “what makes you think your growth into a better man would change that?”

           


	11. Chapter 11

They’d fallen asleep together on the couch, with Molly between his legs, his torso her pillow as he held her with one arm, the other behind his head. 

She told herself it just sort of happened, she didn’t mean to go into his dream again…so she let it happen with a smile she pressed against his chest. 

_They were in his bedroom on Baker Street._

_He was sitting naked in bed, a sheet draped around his hips for the sake of modesty_ _, smoking. He was clearly waiting for her, watching the bathroom door, waiting for her to come out. Molly made sure the bathrobe she wore, his silk blue one that dwarfed her, fell open in just the right spot, revealing just enough of her skin to entice him to touch her._

_She let him smoke because he_ _was allowed to_ _smoke in his dreams, and she grinned at the way he sat up when she walked into the room, the way his expression bloomed from over-elation that she was there, to a dark lust that made her tingle. When he looked at her like that, it usually meant she was going to be devoured, destroyed._

_“How’s this for sexy lingerie?” she asked, doing a twirl for him._

_“Lingerie is so worthless, pointless,” he sat up, the cigarette dangling from his lips, “_ _you could wear one of your horrifically colorful jumpers to bed darling, and I would still be in this condition?”_

_She stood at the foot of his bed, licking her lips, “and what condition is that?”_

_“Hard as a rock for you, throbbing,” his voice dropped several octaves, an animalistic growl that left her breathless, that took away any doubts in her body, in her mind that she belonged to this man._

_“Show me,” she murmured._

_His grin was animalistic, almost terrifying in its single mindedness, in his determination to make her his, to end her_ _. He never dropped the cigarette, puffing out breaths of smoke as used one hand to slowly draw away the white sheet that had been covering_ _his erection. “For you,” he murmured, reaching down to cup himself, “always you my beautiful Molly, my mousey lover capable of bringing me howling, down to my knees for a taste of you.”_

_Molly watched without blinking as he slipped his hand down between his legs to cup himself with a lazy smile, stroking himself languidly with that big hand,_ _drawing out moans from her. His elegant, long_ _musicians_ _'_ _fingers wrapped around that most delicious, secret part of himself, his grip firm as he arched into his own touch left her panting, blossoming for his touch, sighing for a taste. “So beautiful,” she murmured, reaching for the sash of the robes she wore, dropping the blue silk to the floor, a pool at her feet, “_ _I can watch you stroke yourself for ages Sherlock, and never tire.”_ _You look so beautiful darling, sin personified.”_

_“Don’t let me have all the fun by myself,” he reached for her with his free hand, the most delicious blush coloring his chest, rising to his long neck and kissing his cheeks. She knew his ears wouldn’t color until he was close to coming inside her._

_She gripped his hand, crawling between his legs_ _and straddling his thighs. She pushed his hand away, chuckling when he cupped her breasts as she brought his erection against her stomach, pressing him there as she stroked him, her thumb pressing to his silken blunt tip, “my Sherlock,” she murmured as he massaged her breasts, his expression blissful as he arched his back, a shutter going through him as he gasped, “Christ I don’t know what to do with you,” she told him, “I love you so much sometimes it hurts, and I want to run away from you, I really do. You’re too much sometimes, the love I feel for you too much, like I want to hide you somewhere and make sure you’re never hurt, that you never experience one moments discomfort,” she was babbling and she knew it, hoping he would forget this part when he was awake, “_ _you make me feel unhinged.”_

_He rose off the bed, his mouth hungry, his breath desperate as he kissed her and licked inside her mouth, making her gasp_ _as he pressed her hips down, helping her grind herself against his thighs, his erection still in her palm as she stroked him languidly. His breath was hot as he panted against her mouth, “I need to be inside you,” he gasped, “I need your warmth, Molly—” he arched beneath her, an expression of torture, of delicious pain darkening his feature, “Molly.”_

_“I’m here,” she told him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and helping him sit up, “my everything,” she whispered against his ear as she reached down between them, rubbing the very tip of him against her wet core, groaning in delicious pain, “I’ll take care of you,” she told him, her head_ _falling back as she gripped his shoulders for support, slipping him deeper inside herself as she groaned at the ceiling, “I’ve got you darling,” she told him when he was seated deep inside her body, in her very soul_ _._

_Sherlock found her breast with his mouth as she began moving on top of him, thrusting him deeper and harder inside herself, cocooning him in her wet warmth as he panted, his tongue tasting her nipples, teasing her without mercy as her inner muscles gripped him rhythmically, stroking him deeper and deeper inside herself._

_“I’ll never let you go,” she gasped, feeling her orgasm barreling towards, building into a crescendo as she rode her Sherlock into an oblivion that would end them both,_ _her nails digging deep into his shoulders_ _, “oh my love, I want you to come inside me.”_

_“Christ Molly,” he growled, his head dropping as he watched their bodies, watched the way he slipped inside her, watched the way their bodies were joined and connected, “where have you been all my life? All these eons I’ve missed to be inside you like this,” he was panting now, his ears reddening._

_“God,” she wrapped her arms around his_ _neck_ _so she could lean back, driving him deeper inside herself, “this is too good,” she groaned, “fuck it out of me Sherlock,” she groaned, “I’m_ _gonna_ _come.”_

_“Holy hell,” he growled, reaching between them to touch that nubbin of desire and she exploded in his arms, coming as hard as she ever had before, screaming without shame._

Molly awoke with a start to the sound of her own loud moans, her eyes flying up to see Sherlock was watching her with sleepy, curious, alarmed eyes, “Molly?” he asked in an unsteady voice, his ears red, “what the hell is going on?” he growled. 


	12. Chapter 12

It was always trouble when Sherlock started pacing, and he’d been pacing nonstop for two hours now. But how could he stop?

“You can read my thoughts, and… _enter_  my dreams?” he repeated. 

“When you say it like that it sounds absurd,” she murmured, bringing her knees up to her chest. They were still in the sitting room in Baker Street, where they’d fallen asleep against each other on the sofa, except he was on his feet and pacing incessantly while she remained seated. 

“It sounds absurd however you say it,” he pointed out and she had to nod her agreement. 

“That’s a good point but still,” she shrugged a shoulder, “I’m either losing my mind or I can…hear your thoughts.”

“Absurd,” he hissed, shaking his head, “I can’t believe I’m standing here, listening to you tell me you can read my thoughts.”

“Well, then how do you explain having the same dream and both of us coming in our pants? Same exact dream,” she pointed out. 

“What were you wearing?” he asked with narrowed eyes. 

“Nothing mostly,” she told him, “but I did have your blue robe on before I took it off while you were touching yourself,” she couldn’t help shivering at the memory, at the image of him that popped in her thoughts, his hand wrapped around his erection.

He swallowed, stopping in his tracks in front of her, “you said I’m too much sometimes, that it hurts to love me.”

“That I want to tuck you away to make sure nothing and nobody ever got to you, ever hurt you,” she couldn’t help smiling, “but I’d rather have this insanity in my skin then spend one moment without you.”

He let out his breath, “Molly,” he sighed.  _How can I believe any of this? This is insane, nonsensical_. 

“It is insane and nonsensical,” she agreed softly, shrugging her shoulder, “but when you consider how little we know about lightning strikes and how it affects people, how such a jolt of electricity affects the brain—isn’t it just within the realm of possibility that it’s possible for someone to be able to read someone’s thoughts? For something in the brain to be loosened enough to allow a person to—”

“Read minds,” he breathed, “alright, what am I thinking now?”

“I can only read your thoughts when they’re about me,” she said sheepishly. 

“Alright,” he frowned.  _What about now, Molly? This is so absurd I can’t even compose a thought worth you trying to bloody read_!

She laughed softly, “try thinking of a number between one and a million? Think about what I’m wearing.”

 _You’re wearing that black lace bra I love, I’m curious to know if you’re wearing the matching thong_. 

“How did you see my bra?” she asked, looking down at the conservative t-shirt she was wearing, “and no, I’m wearing very non-sexy purple ones, I didn’t know you’d want to see them or I would’ve worn the black lace to please you.”

“This is impossible,” he breathed, sinking into the chair behind him, “unprecedented,” Sherlock shook his head, “no. No this isn’t happening, this is some sort of belated reaction to—to stress. This is trauma manifesting itself, a tumor that’s growing. That’s it.”

“You’d rather believe this is a tumor than something beyond our current understanding of the world?” she gave him a look, “Sherlock.”

“I can’t accept that you—you can read my thoughts, that you  _entered_  my dreams,” he laughed but it wasn’t a real laugh, it was just nervous sound, “this isn’t a bloody movie where things like this just happen and we accept them as  _reality_. This is impossible, what you’re asking me to believe is  _impossible_.”

“It’s within the realm of reality,” she said softly, “for me anyway. Who’s to say what the human brain is capable of? Like I said, the study of lightning strikes on the human brain have never been studied extensively before either because they’re so rare or because the person getting struck by lightning dies before any study can be done. Those who have survived report a change in their personalities, their short-term memory, amnesia, mood changes, as well as physiological problems such as cardiac arrest and raspatory problems for the rest of their lives. The voltage that a strike carries with it is nearly immeasurable, it’s immense, and I'd like to remind you that we only guess how many volts a bolt of lightning carries when it strikes a person. It’s anywhere from one billion to your guess is as good as mine. So, it’s within the realm of possibility that when the lightning essentially rearranges every internal function in the human body and brain--”

“It could make someone into a mind reader,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” she breathed, “maybe the way the house is wired, the copper used in the floor, the fact that I was touching you when it happened, has something to do with why I didn’t fry but can, you know--”

“Read my thoughts, only if those thoughts are connected to you,” he finished for her, making her smile. 

“Yeah,” she chuckled softly.

_Then how do you explain what we saw yesterday? The man I saw, the woman that you saw? The mist?_

“Ghosts?” she grinned at his shocked expression when she read his thought, “ _that_  I'm not going to ask you to believe.”

“But you think they were ghosts? That we saw Hunt and his wife in the house,” he leaned forward.

She nodded solemnly, rising from her seat and walked towards him, “I think we did,” she murmured, taking the hand he offered her, smiling when he pulled her into his lap without even thinking about it, without thinking about the fact that he was doing it, “I’ve always believed when people die in violent ways, when they’re ripped from their life, they linger,” Molly wrapped one arm around his neck, resting the other one on his chest, “I think the soul wouldn’t be able to move on, so many things left to do.”

“So many days not lived, so many words unsaid,” he murmured darkly, as if quoting someone. 

“Mmm?” she hummed, touching his jaw to make him look at her.

“Never mind,” he told her.  _How can I tell you that Euros said those very words to me, how they seemed to be engraved in my bones when I looked down at that coffin intended for_ _you._ _How can I ever admit that I understand why Archie and Mary would linger, would come back? If anything happened to you--_  his thoughts stopped abruptly and he looked at her sheepishly,  _shit_.

“I love you too,” Molly laughed, hugging him tightly against her, sinking her fingers into his hair, holding him against her chest, taking a deep breath as she felt his arms tighten around her, holding her in his lap. 

 _Wait_ , “so you’ve heard...everything,” he looked up at her with a horrified expression, “everything?”

She nodded, kissing his high forehead, “everything. And see? I’m still here,” she murmured, “I’m not going anywhere. You’ll always be enough for me baby, because you’re Sherlock. And I love Sherlock Holmes,” she kissed his cheek, “and feel free to call me your Molly out loud. I sort of like it, almost as much as you like it when I call you baby.”

_You’ll have to pardon me now my Molly,_ _but_ _I'm too overcome with the thought of kissing you to focus on anything verbal._

His kiss was deep, unrelenting, stealing her secrets from her as she sighed them into his mouth, melting against his body. She nearly collapsed if he hadn’t tightened his arms around her, opening her mouth for him and she felt the way he let everything leave him, all his darkness, all his insecurity, all his horror at the thought that he was somehow, inevitably leaving her. 

The honesty in his kiss was shocking, electrifying, and she had to admit it was unsettling to feel him unchained. She had let loose a beast, a beast she had only felt and glimpsed since Sherrinford. She’d felt him in the powerful way he gripped her hair in bed, in the way he thrust his hips when he was taking her from behind, in the way he growled when he was buried deep inside her. She had felt the beast, touched him, heard him whenever Sherlock came inside her, burying his face in the mattress and screaming until he was hoarse and spent, finally collapsing on top of her, boneless and nearly unconscious.

And here was now, loose, unchained, unbridled.

 _Beautiful_.

The knock on the door made them both groan as they pulled away, panting, their mouths swollen, lips red as they looked at each other with lust softened eyes, “it’s Lestrade,” he murmured, “you can tell by the regulation tread and the way he’s using fist to bang on the door instead of knuckles like the non-Scotland Yard universe. If we ignore him long enough, he’ll either knock the door down or go away.”

“Or, and this is just a thought, but what if we let him in?”

“I’m in no condition for company,” he murmured, looking pointedly down at his crotch and she laughed when she saw the clear outline of his erecting tention his trousers.

“Why don’t you go to the restroom and I'll talk to him?”

“I can hear you two in there!” Lestrade yelled.

“They simply don’t pay you enough for your brilliant detective work,” Sherlock called as Molly slipped out of his lap, righting her cloths and quickly putting her hair back up in a ponytail. She watched with a sly grin as her love stood up too, reaching into his trousers with a dignified expression only he could manage to tuck his prick against the waistband of his pants. 

Lestrade didn’t even notice that they were out of breath and red faced, didn’t even bother to apologize for intruding, simply barging in with his usual panicked energy, “alright Sherlock, what have you got for me? I need some answers and you’ve been on the bloody Berkeley Square case long enough to have some kind of explanation right now,” he paused long enough to take a breath, “hey Molls,” he threw in as an afterthought.

“I haven’t got anything for you, no answers,” Sherlock arranged himself carefully on the leather armchair, crossing his legs primly, steapling his hands as he watched Lestrade with shrewd, beautiful eyes. It always turned Molly on, the way he could go from a passionate, demented lover, murmuring dirty, erotic things to her as he did unspeakable things to her body, to this cold, calculating, emotionless detective who acted as if he hadn’t had his tongue in Molly’s mouth five minutes before. 

“How can  _you_  not figure it out?” Lestrade sounded indignant, standing over Sherlock with his hands on his hips, “you’re Sherlock bloody Holmes!”

“Again, they don’t pay you nearly enough. All these years and you finally realize who I am,  _Greg_ ,” he grinned at the detective, “I am the world’s only consulting detective, and if I can’t solve your case for you--”

“Then we’re properly buggered,” Lestrade shook his head, bringing the file he was holding and thrusting it at Sherlock, “here.”

 _Stop hovering my Molly, I can still smell your arousal and it’s making me slightly mad. Mad enough to chuck Lestrade out on his_ _arse_ _and not wait long enough before I take you right here on the floor_.

But whatever teasing mood he was in, faded quickly, his thoughts shifts to something not directed at her so she couldn’t read him any longer. He frowned, his eyes scanning the information quickly, absorbing it fast and his expression grew darker. “What,” she finally demanded.

“So the new owner, Hancock, was not who he said he was,” Sherlock said darkly, “his real name was Ross Everett, and he’s been wanted by the Yard for some time now, for eight years to be in fact. He is accused of having murdered his young bride to get his hands on her bank account.”  _Guess how long they were married, Molly._

 _“_ Eight months,” she murmured.

Sherlock nodded, and they both ignored Greg’s confused expression, “and he was suspected of murdering his first wife as well.”

“Sounds like a lovely guy,” she sank into the chair next to Sherlock’s armchair, watching his eyes scanning the documents.

“Perfectly lovely,” Greg dropped into the armchair opposite Sherlock’s with a tired sigh, “it looks like he used the money from his wife’s account to buy that house, hiding the assets, laying low until Everett died and Hancock was settled into a new life.”

“Who could’ve known his true identity?” Molly murmured. 

“Whoever knew his true identity is the killer,” Greg was watching Sherlock intently, “ _right_?”

“Let the dead bury the dead Lestrade,” he said at last, Greg blinking at him rapidly in confusion, “if this man did what he did, then he was brought to some sort of justice. If it’s not your justice, it is for me. If the culprit strikes again, then I will be more than glad to help you catch the perpetrator. But as I see it--”

“This is murder!”

Sherlock handed Greg the file back, “one man’s murder is just to another. I’m sorry detective, but even if I had an inkling as to who the killer is...”

“We’re dealing with a bloody vigilante then?” Greg nearly yelled.

“No,” Sherlock shook his head, “whoever killed this man, killed him for good reason, for good cause. Perhaps he should’ve turned him to the authorities but for whatever reason, he chose not to. He knew Hancock was a murderer, a fake identity, he killed him not for sport but for justice, to bring rest to the women Everett slaughtered. I doubt this culprit is going to strike again, this is the last you hear of him.”

“I don’t like this,” Greg told him.

“I can’t help with that either,” Sherlock smiled at him, “now if you’d like some tea then you’re more than welcome to stay, otherwise I have some private things to discuss with Molly now, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Greg stood up, “at least you’re not outright telling me to get out,” he looked at Molly with a resigned expression, “you’re a good influence on him.”

“Out!” Sherlock stood up, point at the door, but his stern expression was undermined by the smile that crinkled the corner of his eyes. When he shut the door behind Lestrade, he leaned back against it to watch Molly.

_My Molly. My beautiful Molly. I think I'm going to have to lock us away somewhere for a few weeks, catch up on the time we’ve lost._

Molly walked towards him with a smile, leaning against him, pressing a kiss to his throat as she unbuttoned his shirt, but before they could lose themselves, she pulled away with a raised brow, “so do you know who killed him?”

“No,” he told her honestly, “there aren’t enough clues left behind for me to put anything together.”

“You never stop surprising me,” she murmured, drawing him down for a kiss, and they lost themselves, making love for the first time in months. 

The animal she’d released roared to life as he nearly slammed her against the door, as he yanked down her trousers, tearing her panties to get at her core, lifting her to wrap her legs around his waist as he unzipped himself enough to pull his cock out, sliding deep inside her with a shout. His mouth was open against her throat as he panted against her, grunting with each thrust, his breath warm and wet against her skin as he took her. She cursed, curling his shirt in her fists as he slammed into her, unforgiving, his thoughts screaming his passion in her mind.

 _Unhinged_.

For a moment she felt him sputter, felt him want to stop, felt him doubt himself as she cried out in pained pleasure at the force he took her with. She was breathless, all words abandoning her. She was incapable of doing anything except dropping her face into his throat and biting him hard, encouraging him, reminding him how much she loved him, how much she loved this.

His growl was animalistic, inhuman, so deep in his chest as he pulled away roughly, so abruptly that she felt achingly empty. But he only meant to turn her around, forcing her to lean her chest against the door as he took her from behind, gripping her hips and they both screamed until he came deep inside her, his hand wrapped her throat, the other between her thighs, playing with her clit. 

He carried her to his bed, grabbing a wash towel to clean them up before collapsing on the bed next to her, curling himself around her. “I love you,” he told her, “come into my sleep,” and just like that, he fell asleep, and she put her hands on the center of his chest, grinning as she slipped into his dreams. But he woke her up, rolling her onto her back, forcing her hands above her head, not letting her touch him, forcing her to stay still beneath him on the bed, her legs spread, her body lain bare for his gaze, for his eyes, for his tongue, his cock.


	13. Day 13

It was like dragging a child to the dentist's office when the child knew what cavities were and how his love for candy affected teeth. Or a big, overgrown puppy to the vet.

But Sherlock went with her to 50 Berkeley Square, rolling his eyes when she wiggled her brows before they left Baker Street, pointing out that it was Halloween, and maybe it was a bad idea for them to go to a haunted house on all Hallow’s eve. “Oooh,” he said without inflection, “going to a perfectly normal, old house in Mayfair on another night that’s associated with the supernatural because someone arbitrarily picked the day out on the calendar to celebrate this idiotic holiday,” he had seen that she was about to speak and interrupted her, “and yes, I know it's considered to combat the pagan celebration of the Samhain by the Catholic Church, which chooses to celebrate All Saints Day the day afterwards. And I _know_ it’s used to mark the longest night of the year and all that, but it’s still just another day.”

“After everything you and I've been through these past few days, all that we’ve seen, you still don’t think there’s anything beyond us out there?”

He stopped her outside the house, gripping her wrist and pulling her against him, his eyes intense as he looked down at her, “I once said if you can’t see it or touch it, it doesn’t exist.”

“Yup,” she looked up at him, resting her palms against his chest, fingering the lapels of his overcoat.

“I still believe that,” he told her, “but you said love and affection didn’t exist then, if I had this rule about seeing, touching, and believing.”

Molly nodded again, looking into her love’s eyes, “right.”

“But I can _feel_ your love, Molly,” he brushed his mouth to hers, “I can feel your affection, I can even see your love.”

She didn’t say anything, simply drew him down to her, to kiss him slowly, tasting him, her love...Her Sherlock. 

They’d spent the last few days in peace together, essentially locked up in Baker Street or her flat, making love, pausing only long enough for her to go to work, for him to see a client or two, solve a few murders, before hastily finding their way to each other again. And he didn’t try to hide from her anymore, didn’t try to disguise his true feelings behind useless, ineffective masks. He told her when he was hurting, he let her see his pain, verbalized his feelings even though she could literally read him now. It was a slow process but at least he was willing to try, at least he touched her without hesitation. And when it all became too much for him, he took solace in her body, and left her bruises that were evidence of how deeply he felt.

That same strange sensation was calling her back now to the house, and Sherlock followed her inside.

The heaviness overwhelmed her again, the sensation of walking through rooms full of people she couldn’t see, lives she couldn’t touch or understand. Sherlock was frowning too as they went up the steps, as if he were registering the same sensations she was but unable to understand their source, where they were coming from. She followed her instincts up the steps to the attic, where she felt unbridled joy, images flashing through her mind of Mary with her arms wrapped around Archie, the only source of light in an otherwise abysmal house. 

Every other room felt...heavy, unwelcoming, brooding but the attic today felt airy, joyful. Happy, and Molly couldn’t help smiling as they entered the room, as if Mary and Archie had found their peace and kept this room for themselves. “I wonder what this room was,” Molly murmured, touching the walls as Sherlock remained behind her, “when Archie and Mary lived here.”

“Who knows,” his voice was quiet, barely above a whisper as he remained in the doorway, watching Molly walk around, her hands touching the walls as she strolled.

_I’ll never say it aloud, but you might be right about this house._

Molly grinned, knowing that the fact that he was even in the house with her was enough to show his growth, his maturity in believing something beyond himself. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, her ears twitching, registering sounds she couldn’t hear, a cold draft entering the room with such force that she looked around to make sure there were no vents in the room, no open windows. But the cold was a familiar cold, a familiar sensation... _friendly_.

Molly looked behind her and gasped.

“Mary!”

It wasn’t Mary Hunt, it was  _her_  Mary...Mary Watson...her beloved friend, her Mary. Smiling at her with a huge, familiar grin, wearing an outfit she must have worn a million times during their girls nights. Lovely, sweet Mary with her short blonde hair, brilliant eyes. Molly was frozen as Mary stepped towards her, not saying anything, hovering, her arm translucent as she reached out to touch Molly’s cheek, her voice clear as day, “he’s all yours Molly,” she looked behind her at Sherlock, tears streaming down his cheeks as he watched Mary with his mouth hanging open, “take care of her, or I'll have to come back and make you answer for it.”

“I promise,” he managed.

With a final smile at Molly, Mary disappeared.

For the first time in thirteen days, Molly felt like...Molly. Gone was the electrical charge that had been whispering across her skin, the tingling sensation on the back of her neck, the strange sensation of constant buzzing around her head, like there was permanent static in her head. But all that was gone and she felt...like herself. She looked at Sherlock, rushing over to him to hug him tightly, his tears flowing silently, wetting her neck as she held him against her, soothing him, “that was her, wasn’t it? Our Mary?”

She nodded, stroking his back, smiling at the thought that settled into her heart, the knowledge in her soul that whatever these past eight months had been, whatever craziness the past thirteen days had brought, was Mary all along. Mary that drew them to the house, Mary that allowed her to read his thoughts, his feelings, to understand him, Mary that had known about Hancock’s secret identity, knew that Sherlock would be brought on the case. “Yes, it was our Mary,” she murmured. 

“Trust her to meddle in our affair from beyond the grave,” he said weakly, chuckling softly as he tightened his arms around Molly, “all this to get me back in your arms.”

Molly pulled back slightly, grinning into his eyes, stroking his hair away from his face, “all this to bring us back together,” she smiled, “makes you think doesn’t it, when the universe interferes to make sure we find our way back.”

His expression told her he was thinking something about how silly she was being, how this wall some kind of shared hallucination, that there was no way Mary Watson could have stood there, having orchestrated all of this from beyond the grave. But she couldn’t read him, couldn’t feel his thoughts anymore, in fact-- “Sherlock,” she swallowed, “think something directed at me, right now.”

“I have been, for the past few minutes,” he told her, narrowing his eyes as if focusing on a thought, “why?”

“It’s gone! I can’t hear you anymore!” she breathed a sigh of relief, nearly collapsing in his arms. It had been a nice sensation to be able to hear his thoughts and enter his dreams to give him depraved ideas about what to do to her when he woke up. Neither of them had slept much these past few days, Molly getting more and more inventive with what she wanted from him, Sherlock becoming bolder and taking her in the ways she had shown him in his dreams. But there was also the burden of it, of having to constantly tune into him, to second or third guess her decisions, or what she said to him in case she hurt him, or sent his thoughts scattering in a dark direction. “I mean, I can hear you,” she laughed, “but I only see your thoughts in your eyes now.”

His smile was slow, that beautiful mouth turning up into the most beautiful expression she’d ever seen, leaning down to kiss her slowly, “let’s go home Molly,” he murmured, “I feel like we’re being watched and dead or alive, I’d rather not anyone see what I plan to do to you.”

* * *

 

When they got home, to her flat, Sherlock couldn’t wait to get Molly inside, to lock the door behind them and rip off her clothes, hungry and starving for her body, for a taste of her, for her scent. A man starved, dying of thirst, and Molly his oasis, a fresh water stream.

He groaned in her mouth as he pressed her against himself, knowing his arms were crushing her but she didn’t mind, and he didn’t relent. She would tell him if he hurt her, she was good about that, but fortunately for Sherlock, she had very high tolerance, welcomed his hunger, his need for her with understanding instead of the horror he always imagined.

Sherlock tried to control himself, he really did, he tried to understand where the anger, the desperation came from, or how he could make himself less manic for her but there was no way he could figure it out by himself and Molly...Molly welcomed him with open arms. He smiled against her breast, her nipple in his mouth as he thought since it was Halloween, the perfect analogy would be that he was a werewolf, Molly his full moon, sending him careening through the universe, mad with lust, mad for her. His curse and his savior, his wound and his salve. His greatest weakness and his most unwavering strength.

 _Molly_.

If she loved the madman he truly was, if she could still welcome him into her body knowing what he was, knowing everything there was to know about him and still trust him with her heart, then who was he to turn her away? Who was he to reject something so powerful that it defied death? 

His thoughts briefly fluttered to the Hunts, and Mary, and what it all meant in the context of the universe. He still couldn’t believe they’d seen a ghost, was still hoping there was some sort of gas leak at least, undetected in the house. But the truth was, he didn’t care in that moment. Whatever mystery was in Berkeley House, whatever lay there, whatever secrets it protected, paled in comparison to Molly, and Molly’s sighs and moans as he walked her to the couch. She was his greatest treasure, his greatest prize, his greatest pride. He was nothing without her, and he wanted to be nothing without her in his life. It was easy to slip into oblivion, but when he had Molly to live for, he wanted to be the best version of himself.

“Here or in bed,” he panted against her open mouth, his hand finding her wet core beneath her trousers, cupping her through her panties.

“I honestly don’t care,” she gasped in his mouth, her small, strong hands find the button of his trousers and impatiently yanking the zipper down to touch his erection, “I just want you,” she told him, “nothing else.”

What could he say to that, how could he thank for that?

As he lost himself in the taste of her nipple in his mouth, in the sensation of her wet warmth as he slipped his middle finger slowly inside her, he realized with astounding clarity that he didn’t have to say anything. All he had to do was...let Molly love him, and love her in turn. There was no need for anything else, as long as he gave and she took, and she took and he gave. 

He squeezed his eyes shut against his thoughts, focusing on how amazing her eraser hard nipple felt in his mouth, how delicious her skin was, focused on the sound she made as she arched off the bed, gasping when he started moving his fingers rhythmically so deep inside her wetness. Oh the years he’d wasted without knowing the pure pleasure of knowing how someone’s skin tasted, how Molly’s skin tasted.

Sherlock couldn’t help the chuckle that shook his shoulders, that had Molly lifting her head up to look at him with a raised brow, “what,” she gasped. 

“I was just thinking,” he kissed a wet trail from her nipple, between her lovely, perfect breasts, up her sternum to her throat, dipping his tongue into the hollow there, swallowing her sweat, “you turn me into a cannibal,” he smiled, “I have a taste for your skin now, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it, or let you spend a day without me tasting you,  _eating_  you.”

Her laugh was throaty, pleased, a woman basking in her lover’s attention, “I’ve created a monster,” she grinned, pulling him up to her mouth to kiss him slowly, her hand between them, stroking him slowly, her clever hands knowing just what part of him to touch, to stroke, press against to make him arch against her, moan for her. 

It didn’t take her long to stoke the fire that lit him from within, the fire that would burn them both, that had him ripping off her clothes at the same time she ripped off his, growling her need, biting him hard on his collarbone as he settled her on the couch, pushing her back and wrapping her legs around his waist. He leaned over her, steadying himself by gripping the back of the couch as he pushed himself inside her, as he looked down between their bodies and watched her consume him. 

As always, he became overwhelmed, his thoughts jumbled, fascinated by sex, by the very act, the very fact that he was inside Molly, that a part of him was  _inside_  her. Actually, literally, completely inside her, and she wanted him there, urging him to go deeper, her hands gripping his hips and forcing him to nudge closer, to push harder. “Baby,” she gasped beneath him, his hips setting a punishing rhythm, “baby oh!”

He watched her, obsessed as he thrust deeper and harder inside her, as she watched him intently with those brown eyes, her smile slow, satisfied as his thrusts became harder, faster until he was arching his back, pushing into her as he fought for control, “Molly,” her name was a prayer on his lips, a reverend call, “take it Molly,” he growled, “Christ I’m about to lose control my love,  _take it_.”

Lifting her torso she licked his nipple into her mouth, “come inside me Sherlock,” she murmured as she collapsed back, throwing her hands above her head, the international sign of surrender, “come inside me my love, let me feel you.”

He fell forward on top of her, probably crushing her but she didn’t seem to care as he listened to himself grunt and moan and growl for his Molly, as her heat swallowed him, her hot breath against his warm skin at his neck as she whispered in his ear, urging him to fuck her, to take her until finally… _Finally_.  _Fuck._

Sherlock reared back as he released inside her, a man tortured, gasping as she took him, as she found her own release with him with a satisfied, knowing smile as her lover fought for control, as Sherlock disintegrated in the universe, becoming a void and Molly Hooper was his only light, his only breath, his only heartbeat. 

It must have been hours later as they lay against each other in bed, stroking their hands over each other’s naked bodies reverently, simply enjoying the peacefulness of the moment. She had her cheek in the crook of his shoulder, tracing absent patterns in the thick ginger hair on his chest, “Sherlock,” she murmured, looking up at him. 

She had pulled him out of his thoughts, he looked down at her with a lazy smile, “Hmm?”

“So do you think Mary killed Everett?”

He barked a laugh, “highly unromantic pillow talk, Molly, wouldn’t you say?”

Molly grinned, “this is you and me, we don’t do things the normal way.”

“That’s a very astute observation,” he lifted himself up on his elbow to look down at her, stroking her hair away from her cheek, “I was just thinking about that and I can honestly say I have no clue, but it would very much be like Mary to something like that, to find a way to bring a murderer to justice, from beyond the grave if she had to.”

“She was lovely,” Molly murmured, “I guess we’ll never know.”

He kissed her cheek, “perhaps some things are meant to remain mysteries for us,” he said quietly against her skin, “oh Molly, of all the times for you not to read my thoughts.”

Her brown eyes were curious, “what do you mean?”

He pressed her forehead to his, “how do I say this? How do I begin this conversation? Maybe something with ‘speaking of us being unusual in the way we do things’ and segue into a conversation about us having…children.”

“Fuck!” she said loudly after a few moments, startling him, “it’s Halloween, you’re talking about having children with me. Oh God, you are possessed.”

Sherlock laughed, rolling her beneath him, carefree in that moment as he looked a this love, “yes Molly, by  _you_. Don’t you know Molly, I had a dream.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo! We made it to the end! I wrote a 13 chapter story in less than 13 days and I hope you guys enjoyed it!! I've loved hearing from you!! For those of you wondering what's next, "Give Me Your Scars" and "So Far From Me" are priority as far as my fanfiction goes, they should start getting updated again! If you follow me on Tumblr (siriuslyhiddenlawyer) I have a few of my Unnamed Lovers stories coming up too!
> 
> Turn on, tune in, drop out! xx

**Author's Note:**

> If you know the story of Berkeley Square, forgive the liberties I had to take.


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